Rubidium atomic properties

Xiao M, Li Y, Jin S and et al. Measmement of dispersive properties of electromagnetically induced transparency in rubidium atoms. Physical Review Letters 1995 Jan 30 74(5) 666-669. 

Chemical properties and spectroscopic data support the view that in the elements rubidium to xenon, atomic numbers 37-54, the 5s, 4d 5p levels fill up. This is best seen by reference to the modern periodic table p. (i). Note that at the end of the fifth period the n = 4 quantum level contains 18 electrons but still has a vacant set of 4/ orbitals. 

A remarkable property of the atomic weights was discovered, in the sixties, independently by Lothar Meyer and Mendeleeff. They found that the elements could be arranged in rows in the order of their atomic weights so that similar elements would be found in the same columns. A modernised form of the Periodic Table will be found on pp. 106, 107. It will be noticed, for example, that the "alkali" metals, Lithium, Sodium, Rubidium and Caesium, which... 

Atomic Weight.—The chemical properties of caesium indicate its close relationship to the other alkali-metals. It is univalent, forming compounds of the type CsX, its atomic weight and hydrogen equivalent being the same. Its atomic weight is of the order Cs =133 a value conformed by the specific-heat method (Vol. I., p. 88) by the isomorphism of the caesium compounds with those of potassium, ammonium, and rubidium (Vol. I., p. 74) by the correspondence of the properties of the metal and its compounds with the periodic system by the formation of a univalent cation and by the depression of the freezing-point of bismuth chloride and mercuric chloride produced by caesium chloride. 

Fundamental atomic and physical properties of the alkali metals are given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The elements are characterized by having electron configurations each with a single s orbital electron outside a noble gas core (see Table 1). Sodium and cesium are mononucUdic so that their relative atomic masses are known extremely accurately in effect, the same can be written for potassium and rubidium since their isotopes (of which there are three and two, respectively) have... 

Rubidium gas has become important in the study of an exotic state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. This state, first predicted in 1924 by Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, was not observed until 1995. Many laboratories now produce these cooled clouds of atoms, mostly using gases of alkali elements, which have appropriate spin and magnetic properties. 

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