Atomic lifetimes and electron excitation

PRECISE STUDIES of atomic lifetimes have intensified during the past few years, undoubtedly with the impetus of the increasing interest of astrophysicists and laser researchers. It had previously been all too common that extensive transition‐probability data were not available; one could only rely on calculations. The ensuing progress, however, has not been limited simply to expansion of the more “classical” types of experimentation, which in fact only give the product of the transition probability and the atom density. Experiments now measure the lifetime τ directly by some techniques that will be quite familiar to the nuclear physicist. They also measure its Fourier transform, the linewidth $Δω = 1/τ.$