Analysis of Polarizability Measurements Made with Atom Interferometry

• Main Authors: Gregoire, Maxwell, Brooks, Nathan, Trubko, Raisa, Cronin, Alexander
• Other Authors: Univ Arizona, Dept Phys
• Language: en
• Published: MDPI AG 2016
• Subjects: atom interferometry; polarizability; oscillator strengths; state lifetimes; line strength; van der Waals interactions
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/621408; http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/621408

We present revised measurements of the static electric dipole polarizabilities of K, Rb, and Cs based on atom interferometer experiments presented in [Phys. Rev. A 2015, 92, 052513] but now re-analyzed with new calibrations for the magnitude and geometry of the applied electric field gradient. The resulting polarizability values did not change, but the uncertainties were significantly reduced. Then, we interpret several measurements of alkali metal atomic polarizabilities in terms of atomic oscillator strengths f(ik), Einstein coefficients A(ik), state lifetimes tau(k), transition dipole matrix elements D-ik, line strengths S-ik, and van der Waals C-6 coefficients. Finally, we combine atom interferometer measurements of polarizabilities with independent measurements of lifetimes and C-6 values in order to quantify the residual contribution to polarizability due to all atomic transitions other than the principal ns-np(J) transitions for alkali metal atoms.