Abstract
We report measurements of the absolute excitation frequencies of and odd-parity Rydberg series. The states are detected through depletion of a magneto-optical trap via a two-photon excitation scheme. Measurements of 162 Rydberg levels in the range –101 yield quantum defects well described by the Rydberg-Ritz formula. We observe a strong perturbation in the series around due to an unidentified interloper at 48515.47(4) . From the series convergence, we determine the first ionization potential , which is three orders of magnitude more accurate than previous work. This work is an important step towards using Ho atoms for collective encoding of a quantum register.
- Received 3 December 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.012507
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