Radiative lifetime of the metastable S-1(0) state of Xe2+ - art. no. 012504

The radiative lifetime of the S-1(0) metastable state of Xe2+ has been meas ured with a different type of electrostatic ion trap. The ion trap stores i on beams of a few keV using purely electrostatic fields and provides a larg e held-free region where the stored ions oscillate. A photomultiplier worki ng in the single-photon counting mode was used to observe the 380 nm photon s arising from the magnetic dipole (M1) transition S-1(0)-->P-3(1) of Xe2+. The present measurement yields a value of 4.46+/-0.08 ms, which is in good agreement with previous measurements, but is almost four times more accura te.