Using cold trapped atoms to determine lifetime of a Rydberg sequence

Summary form only given. Measurements of Rydberg states lifetime are a powerful test for calculations involving many-body problems and alkali atoms, and have been used as prototypes for such a study. Cold trapped atoms provide an interesting sample to investigate high excited states lifetime with great advantage compared to traditional atomic beam techniques. Effects on measured lifetimes of the excited atoms such as superradiance and collisions may be controlled and even suppressed by using cold atoms held in a trap. In this work we measured the lifetime of a sequence of states S, P and D as a function of the principal quantum number (n). These highly excited states have remarkable properties due to their weakly bound outer electron energies and their electron's large orbit radius. Due to the very weak binding energies, these states tend to be very sensitive to perturbations, such as external electric fields that are used to detect atoms in these states.