Measurement of the lifetime of the 7S1/2 state in atomic cesium using asynchronous gated detection

ORAL

Abstract

Our group is making progress towards new parity violation measurements in cesium. Atomic lifetime measurements provide sensitive tests of theoretical models of the cesium atom, which play a central role in parity violation measurements. We report a measurement of the lifetime of the cesium $7s^2~S_{1/2}$ state using time-correlated single photon counting spectroscopy. We excite the atoms using a Doppler-free two-photon transition from the ground state, and detect the $1.47~\mu m$ photons from spontaneous decay. We introduce an asynchronous detection technique using gated single photon detectors, allowing us to capture the fluorescence profile for a time window much larger than the detector gate length.

*We acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation under Grant Number PHY-1607603 and PHY-1460899.

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Authors

  • George Toh

    • Purdue University

  • Jose A. Jaramillo-Villegas

    • Purdue University

  • Nathan Glotzbach

    • Purdue University

  • Jonah Quirk

    • University of Southern Indiana

  • Ian C. Stevenson

    • Purdue University

  • Jungo Choi

    • Purdue University

  • Andrew M. Weiner

    • Purdue University

  • Daniel S. Elliott

    • Purdue University