The effect of resonant collisions on the lifetime of the 6 3P1 state in mercury

J. A. Piper*, W. J. Sandle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The authors report an application of the pulsed magnetic field technique to the study of resonant inter-atomic collisions on the decay of alignment ( gamma 2) of the 63P1 state of mercury. Resonance fluorescence scattered at right angles from atoms near the front face of a cell is observed; the depolarizing effect of multiple scattering is thereby reduced, allowing studies of same-isotope collisions to proceed to higher density. For this geometry the effect of wall collisions on gamma 2 is not large. Magnetic scanning of the lamp is employed, firstly, to determine the isotopic abundance in the cell, and, secondly to enable study of both 'same-isotope' and 'different-isotope' collisions using the same lamp and cell. The results for different-isotope collisions confirm those obtained by others. For Hg 198-Hg198 collisions, the contribution to gamma 2 is found to be (4.7+or-0.5)*10-9 N cm 2s-1, in satisfactory agreement with the theoretical value.

Original languageEnglish
Article number034
Pages (from-to)377-385
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Physics B: Atomic and Molecular Physics
Volume5
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1972
Externally publishedYes

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