Measurement of Metastable Lifetimes of Highly-Charged Ions

The present work is part of a series of measurements of metastable lifetimes of highly-charged ions (HCIs) which contribute to optical absorption, emission and energy balance in the Interstellar Medium (ISM), stellar atmospheres, etc. Measurements were carried out using the 14-GHz electron cyclotron resonance ion source (ECRIS) at the JPL HCI facility. The ECR provides useful currents of charge states such as C(sup(1-6)+), Mg(sup(1-6)+) and Fe(sup(1-17)+). In this work the HCI beam is focused into a Kingdon electrostatic ion trap for measuring lifetimes via optical decays