Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2866–2869 (1996)High Precision Linewidth Measurement of Laser-Cooled Atoms: Resolution of the Na 3p2P3/2 Lifetime DiscrepancyReceived 5 December 1995; published in the issue dated 15 April 1996 We report resolution of the 1% discrepancy between theory and experiment for the lifetime of the first excited state of Na. Determining the atomic lifetime by a novel method, we have measured the natural linewidth of the 32S1/2→32P3/2 transition with <0.25% accuracy through precision spectroscopy on an optically prepared sample of ultracold, two-level atoms. The resulting 32P3/2 lifetime of 16.237(35) ns disagrees with previous time-domain measurements but is in good agreement with recent calculations and a new fast beam result. © 1996 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2866
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2866
PACS:
32.70.Cs, 32.70.Jz, 32.80.Pj, 42.62.Fi
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