Spectroscopy of a cold strontium Rydberg gas

We present a study of a cold strontium Rydberg gas. The narrowband laser excitation of Rydberg states in the range n = 20-80 from a 6 mK cloud of strontium atoms is detected using the spontaneous ionization of the Rydberg atoms. Using a high-resolution step-scanning technique, we perform detailed measurements of the Stark maps of selected Rydberg states. We find excellent agreement between the measured Stark maps and a numerical calculation based on an independent electron model. Finally we show that excitation of the second valence electron can be used to probe the dynamics of the Rydberg gas with nanosecond temporal resolution via autoionization.