アイテム詳細

要旨

A method is presented to measure the decay rate of the first excited vibrational state of polar molecular ions being part of a Coulomb crystal in a cryogenic linear Paul trap . Speci f- ically, we have monitored the decay of the |ν=1,J=1> X towards the |ν=0,J=0> X level in MgH + by saturated laser excitation of the |ν=0,J=2> X - |ν =1,J=1> X transition followed by state selective reso nance - enhanced two - photon dissociation out of the |ν=0,J=2> X level. The technique can be extended to other simple molecular ions and it enables the determination, with an accur a- cy at the few percent level , of decay rates and thus absorption strengths.