Relativistic electron correlation, quantum electrodynamics, and the lifetime of the 1s(2)2s(2)2p2p0(3/2) level in boronlike argon

A Lapierre; U D Jentschura; J R Crespo López-Urrutia; J Braun; G Brenner; H Bruhns; D Fischer; A J González Martínez; Z Harman; W R Johnson; C H Keitel; V Mironov; C J Osborne; G Sikler; R Soria Orts; V Shabaev; H Tawara; I I Tupitsyn; J Ullrich; A Volotka

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.183001

Relativistic electron correlation, quantum electrodynamics, and the lifetime of the 1s(2)2s(2)2p2p0(3/2) level in boronlike argon

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Oct 28;95(18):183001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.183001. Epub 2005 Oct 24.

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.

PMID: 16383899
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.183001

Abstract

The lifetime of the Ar13+ 1s(2)2s(2)2p2p0(3/2) metastable level was determined at the Heidelberg Electron Beam Ion Trap to be 9.573(4)(5). The accuracy level of one per thousand makes this measurement sensitive to quantum electrodynamic effects like the electron anomalous magnetic moment (EAMM) and to relativistic electron-electron correlation effects like the frequency-dependent Breit interaction. Theoretical predictions, adjusted for the EAMM, cluster about a lifetime that is approximately shorter than our experimental result.