Interpretation of Experimental Results on the Relaxation of Optically Pumped Rb in Collisions with Kr Atoms

A theoretical analysis of experimental results on the relaxation induced by Rb-Kr collisions reveals the existence of two very different correlation times. The shorter, of the order of ${10}^{-12\mathrm{}}$ sec, is a kinetic collision time; the longer, ${10}^{-8\mathrm{}}$ sec, reflects the presence of metastable states associated with resonances in Rb-Kr scattering, or of actual Rb-Kr bound states due to three-body collisions.