Phys. Rev. A 75, 066502 (2007) [3 pages]Comment on “Measurement of the lifetimes of S and D states below n=31 using cold Rydberg gas”Received 13 December 2006; published 29 June 2007 A recent paper by [ Nascimento et al. Phys. Rev. A 74 054501 (2006)], and a previous paper from the same group [ de Oliveira et al. Phys. Rev. A 65 031401 (2002)], report measurements of Rydberg lifetimes in rubidium in the range 27≤n≤44. In this Comment, we point out one apparent flaw of experimental technique in these papers that may lead to systematic errors in the results. We also clarify a point of theoretical interpretation used in these papers which suggests that the agreement between experiment and theory may not be as good as it seems. © 2007 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.75.066502
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.75.066502
PACS:
32.10.−f, 32.80.Pj, 34.10.+x, 34.50.Rk
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