Abstract
In view of the current interest of ion trap workers in the lifetime of the 4f136s22F7/20 level in Yb II which may decay by electric octupole (E3) radiation to the ground 4f146s2S1/2 level, we have used a pseudorelativistic Hartree-Fock method including configuration interaction and core polarization effects to estimate the value of the E3 matrix element 4f|r3|6s. The calculated lifetime, τ=8.4yr, is in excellent agreement with the recent measurement due to Roberts et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1876 (1997)] (τ=10.14+7yr).

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