Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : The production of uranium vapors has been studied in the 5L°6 ground state using a pulsed hollow cathode lamp. The evolution of the 238U (5L°6) concentration with time has been studied with Xe and Ar as buffer gases. A density of 2.7 × 1013 atoms cm-3 was obtained with Xe as a buffer gas. In addition, those measurements, obtained from the absorption of a laser beam tuned to the 5758.143 Å (5L°6-17, 3617L6) transition, lowed the determination of the transition probability A = 2.1 × 105 sec-1 and of the branching ratio BR = 0.08 for this transition. © 1979 Optical Society of America.