Inert-gas collisional broadening and shifts of Rb Rydberg states

Abstract

The broadening and shift of several Rb $3S\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{nS}$ and $3S\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{nD}$ transitions perturbed by inert gases have been measured by Doppler-free two-photon absorption and fluorescence detection. The measured shifts are in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions, whereas the measured broadening rates are found to be much larger.