Iterative Precision Measurement of Branching Ratios Applied to 5P states in 88Sr+

TL;DR

This paper introduces a broadly applicable, noise-insensitive method for precisely measuring atomic ion branching ratios, demonstrated on 88Sr+ with unprecedented accuracy and significant improvements over previous measurements.

Contribution

The authors present a new measurement scheme for atomic ion branching ratios that does not require ultrafast lasers and is highly precise and robust against experimental noise.

Findings

Achieved sub-1% uncertainties in branching ratios

Measured 17.175(27) for 5P1/2-5S1/2

Measured 15.845(71) for 5P3/2-5S1/2

Abstract

We report on a method for measuring the branching ratios of dipole transitions of trapped atomic ions by performing nested sequences of population inversions. This scheme is broadly applicable and does not use ultrafast pulsed or narrow linewidth lasers. It is simple to perform and insensitive to experimental variables such as laser and magnetic field noise as well as ion heating. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we make the most accurate measurements thus far of the branching ratios of both 5P1/2 and 5P3/2 states in 88Sr+ with sub-1% uncertainties. We measure 17.175(27) for the branching ratio of 5P1/2-5S1/2, 15.845(71) for 5P3/2-5S1/2, and 0.05609(21) for 5P3/2-4D5/2, ten- fold and thirty-fold improvements in precision for 5P1/2 and 5P3/2 branching ratios respectively over the best previous experimental values.