Comment on “Measurement of the electron affinity of the lanthanum atom”

Christophe Blondel (1)

1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas

The electron affinity of the lanthanum atom was recently measured by slow-electron velocity map imaging in a photodetachment experiment [Y. Lu et al., Phys. Rev. A 99, 062507 (2019)]. Several detachment threshold energies have been measured, which correspond to different energy levels of the initial ion and/or final atom. Only one measurement, however, has been exploited to determine the electron affinity. Applying the ordinary spectroscopic method to the complete set of data presented by the authors, one obtains a slightly different, more precise and more consistent value of the electron affinity of La: 449 691(17) instead of 449 697(20) m−1, i.e., 0.557 546(20) instead of 0.557 553(25) eV.

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]

Christophe Blondel. Comment on “Measurement of the electron affinity of the lanthanum atom”. Physical Review A, 2020, 101 (1), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.101.016501⟩. ⟨hal-02928751⟩