Spontaneous Emission Lifetime of a Single TrappedCa+Ion in a High Finesse Cavity

Abstract

We investigate the spontaneous emission lifetime of a single trapped ${}^{40}\mathrm{Ca}^{+}$ ion placed at different positions in the vacuum standing wave inside a high finesse cavity which is stabilized to the atomic transition. The lifetime is measured by quantum state detection after $\pi$-pulse excitation. The result for the natural lifetime of the $D_{5/2}$ metastable state of 1161(22) ms agrees, within 1 standard deviation, with the most precise published value. We observe a reduction of the spontaneous emission lifetime of $\approx 15\%$ in the node of the vacuum field.