Determination of radiative lifetimes in the 3d10np2Psequence of neutral copper by time-resolved vuv laser spectroscopy

Lifetimes in the 3${\mathit{d}}^{10}$np ${}_{}{}^2{}_{}{}^{}$P sequence in neutral copper were measured by time-resolved laser spectroscopy. Excitation from the ground state was performed with pulsed laser radiation in the vuv spectral region, generated by resonant sum-difference four-wave mixing in krypton gas. The life- times were evaluated from recorded optical transients. For the ${\mathit{np}}^2$ ${\mathit{P}}_{\mathit{J}}$ states we find the fol- lowing: τ(n=6,J=3/2)=5.2(8) ns, τ(6,1/2)=25.1(10) ns, τ(7,3/2)=15.0(12) ns, τ(7,1/2)=4.0(8) ns, τ(8,3/2)=31(2) ns, τ(8,1/2)=15.8(12) ns, τ(9,3/2)=123(6) ns, and τ(9,1/2)=51(6) ns. The data are compared with a recent multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock calculation.