Method for Determining the Lifetimes of the Long-lived 1 s2s2p 4PJ State J-levels

A method is proposed for measuring the J-level lifetimes of the long-lived 1 s2s2p P-4(J) state for low Z Li-like ions. This necessity stems from the fact that in Auger electron spectroscopy it is necessary to accurately determine the effective detection solid angle that straightforwardly depends on the lifetimes of the long-lived states. The proposed method is applied to the geometry of the zero-degree projectile electron spectroscopy (ZAPS) setup, located at the NCSR "Demokritos" Tandem accelerator laboratory, utilizing Monte Carlo type simulations within the SIMION ion optics package. It is found that the proposed method can be safely applied to elements having 5 <= Z <= 9.