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arXiv · 2409.18430

Energy Levels and Transition Rates of Laser-Cooling Candidate Th^-

Rui Zhang·Yuzhu Lu·Shuaiting Yan·Chuangang Ning
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Abstract

The energy levels and transition rates of promising laser-cooling candidate thorium anion Th^- have been experimentally obtained in the current work. Three new excited states between the bound-bound electric dipole (E1) transition of Th^- are observed now, and their energy levels are determined to be 1,847(13), 3,166.8(59) and 3,666(12) cm^{-1}, respectively. Meanwhile, the lifetime of the upper state of that E1 transition is experimentally determined to be 30(2) microseconds, about 3 times shorter than the previous calculated result 86 microseconds, which makes Th^- the most promising candidate for laser cooling of negative ions. Furthermore, the lifetimes of two other short-lived odd-parity excited states of Th^- are also measured to be 59(4) and 53(3)microseconds, respectively.

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Rui Zhang, Yuzhu Lu, Shuaiting Yan, Chuangang Ning. 2024-09-27. Energy Levels and Transition Rates of Laser-Cooling Candidate Th^-. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.111.023102

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