Determination of lifetimes of ${6 P}_{J}$ levels and ground-state polarizability of Cs from the van der Waals coefficient $C_{6}$

A method for determination of atomic lifetimes from the value of dispersion coefficient

C_{6}

of molecular potentials correlating to two ground-state atoms is proposed. The method is illustrated with atomic Cs using

C_{6}

deduced from high-resolution Feshbach spectroscopy. The following lifetimes are determined:

τ_{{6 P}_{1 / 2}} = 34.80 \pm 0.07 ns

and

τ_{{6 P}_{3 / 2}} = 30.39 \pm 0.06 ns .

The underlying electric-dipole matrix elements are required for a refined analysis of parity violation in

^{133} Cs .

We also obtain static polarizability of the Cs ground state,

α (0) = 400.49 (81)

atomic units. It is demonstrated that the uncertainties may be considerably reduced as the coefficient

C_{6}

is constrained further.

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Determination of lifetimes of6PJlevels and ground-state polarizability of Cs from the van der Waals coefficientC6