title: Spontaneous emission lifetime of a single trapped Ca(+) ion in a high finesse cavity.
abstract: We investigate the spontaneous emission lifetime of a single trapped (40)Ca+ ion placed at different positions in the vacuum standing wave inside a high finesse cavity which is stabilized to the atomic transition. The lifetime is measured by quantum state detection after pi-pulse excitation. The result for the natural lifetime of the D(5/2) metastable state of 1161(22) ms agrees, within 1 standard deviation, with the most precise published value. We observe a reduction of the spontaneous emission lifetime of approximately 15% in the node of the vacuum field.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kreuter
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Becher
authors.forename: G P T
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Lancaster
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Mundt
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Häffner
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roos
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eschner
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schmidt-Kaler
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Blatt