Spectroscopy with cold and ultracold strontium atoms

Photoassociation spectroscopy is used to probe the ro-vibrational spectrum of the strontium dimer at the at the /sup 1/S/sub 0/ + /sup 3/P/sub 1/ - asymptote by measuring the trap loss depending on the frequency of a photoassociation laser red-detuned to the 1S/sub 0/-3P/sub 1/ transition. This study can be complemented by the measurement of the density dependent shift of the frequency of this narrow intercombination transition. The possibilities to realise a frequency standard on these transitions are discussed.