Configuration interaction method is used to calculate transition amplitudes and other properties of the low states of dysprosium which are used in cooling and in the study of the time variation of the fine structure constant and violation of fundamental symmetries. The branching ratio for the cooling state to decay to states other than ground states is found to be smaller than ${10}^{-4}$. The matrix element of the weak interaction between degenerate states at $E=19797.96$ cm${}^{-1}$ is about $4$ Hz which is consistent with the experimental limit $\left|H_W\right|=|2.3\pm 2.9(\mathrm{stat}.)\pm 0.7(\mathrm{syst}.)|$ Hz [A. T. Nguyen, D. Budker, D. DeMille, and M. Zolotorev, Phys. Rev. A 56, 3453 (1997)] and points to feasibility of its experimental measurement. Applications include the search for physics beyond the standard model using the parity nonconservation (PNC) isotopic chain approach.

• Received 4 March 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.052515