Experimental constraints on the polarizabilities of the 6s^2 1S0 and 6s6p 3P0 states of Yb

TL;DR

This paper establishes experimental bounds on the polarizabilities of Yb's ground and excited states, aiding validation of theoretical models with precise constraints derived from literature data.

Contribution

It provides the first experimentally constrained bounds on Yb's polarizabilities, offering a benchmark for theoretical calculations.

Findings

Ground state polarizability: 134.4 to 144.2 atomic units

Excited state polarizability: 280.1 to 289.9 atomic units

Uncertainty in bounds is approximately 1.0 atomic units

Abstract

We utilize accurate experimental data available in the literature to yield bounds on the polarizabilities of the ground and first excited states of atomic Yb. For the 6s^2 1S0 ground state, we find the polarizability alpha to be constrained to 134.4<alpha<144.2 in atomic units, while for the 6s6p 3P0 excited state we find 280.1<alpha<289.9. The uncertainty in each of these values is 1.0. These constraints provide a valuable check for ab initio and semi-empirical methods used to compute polarizabilities and other related properties in Yb.