Transients in mercury resonance fluorescence under pulsed electric fields: measurement of differential Stark shifts

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Abstract
A Stark effect experiment is presented, which involves the recording of transients in radiation resonantly scattered by a vapour, following the sudden application of an electric field pulse. The theory of this effect is developed from the case where a general step-function perturbation is applied. The transients have the form of damped sinusoidal oscillations: the damping is determined by the rate of radiative decay; the modulation frequencies depend directly on the energy-level splittings caused by the applied field. This technique has been to measure the magnitude and sign of the differential Stark shifts in the 63P1 level of 198Hg and 199Hg. These lead to a value for the tensor polarizability which is in good agreement with recent measurements. Results are presented of a calculation of the polarizabilities of the 63P1 and 61S0 levels based on experimental oscillator strengths.

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