Measurements of electric dipole polarizabilities of the alkali-metal atoms and the metastable noble-gas atoms

The E-H-gradient balance technique has been used to measure the static electric dipole polarizabilities of the alkali-metal atoms and the tensor polarizabilities of the ³P₂ metastable noble-gas atoms. All of the measurements are normalized to the scalar polarizability of ³S₁ metastable helium, a value which has been accurately calculated. The scalar polarizabilities of the alkali atoms, in units of 10^-24 cm³, are for lithium, 24.3 ±{} 0.5; sodium, 23.6 ±{} 0.5; potassium, 43.4 ±{} 0.9; rubidium, 47.3 ±{} 0.9; cesium, 59.6 ±{} 1.2. For the ³P₂ metastable noble-gas atoms we measure the zz components of the polarizability tensors for mJ=1 and 2, which completely determines the polarizability tensors for all mJ. For αzz(mJ) we find, in units of 10^-24 cm³, for neon, 28.4 ±{} 0.6 (mJ=1) and 26.7 ±{} 0.5 (mJ=2); argon, 49.5 ±{} 1.0 (mJ=1) and 44.7 ±{} 0.9 (mJ=2); krypton, 52.7 ±{} 1.0 (mJ=1) and 46.8 ±{} 0.9 (mJ=2); xenon, 66.6 ±{} 1.3 (mJ=1) and 57.4 ±{} 1.1 (mJ=2). The rare-gas results, while more precise, are in good agreement with earlier work. The alkali-metal results are in excellent agreement with recent theory and the experiment of Hall and Zorn.