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arXiv · 1110.3748

On the Prospects for Laser Cooling of TlF

L. R. Hunter·S. K. Peck·A. S. Greenspon·S. Saad Alam·D. DeMille
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Abstract

We measure the upper state lifetime and two ratios of vibrational branching fractions f_{v'v} on the B^{3}Π_{1}(v') - X^{1}Σ^{+}(v) transition of TlF. We find the B state lifetime to be 99(9) ns. We also determine that the off-diagonal vibrational decays are highly suppressed: f_{01}/f_{00} < 2x10^{-4} and f_{02}/f_{00} = 1.10(6)%, in excellent agreement with their predicted values of f_{01}/f_{00} < 8x10^{-4} and f_{02}/f_{00} = 1.0(2)% based on Franck-Condon factors calculated using Morse and RKR potentials. The implications of these results for the possible laser cooling of TlF and fundamental symmetries experiments are discussed.

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L. R. Hunter, S. K. Peck, A. S. Greenspon, S. Saad Alam, D. DeMille. 2011-10-17. On the Prospects for Laser Cooling of TlF. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.85.012511

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