Importance of an M2 depopulating channel for a Kr II metastable state.
An experimental investigation of the radiative lifetime of the metastable 4s24p4(3P)4d4D7/2 level in Kr II shows an unusual situation regarding the importance of an M2 depopulation channel. While the first order M1 and E2 channels are expected to contribute in a dominant way to the decay, the experimental result, obtained using a laser probing technique on a stored ion beam, tau = 0.57+/-0.03 s, is far too short to be due to these channels according to our relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock calculation. Only if second order contributions to the decay branches (including essentially the M2 contribution) are taken into account in the calculations could the unexpected short lifetime be explained.
IPNAS (Bâtiment B 15), Université de Liège, Sart Tilman, B-4000 1, Belgium.
E
E
Biémont
A
A
Derkatch
P
P
Lundin
S
S
Mannervik
L-O
LO
Norlin
D
D
Rostohar
P
P
Royen
P
P
Palmeri
P
P
Schef