Measurements of blackbody-radiation-induced transition rates between high-lying <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>S</mml:mi></mml:math> , <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>P</mml:mi></mml:math> , and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mi>D</mml:mi></mml:math> Rydberg levels

We report experimental measurements of the rates of blackbody radiation-induced transitions between high-lying (n>60) S, P and D Rydberg levels of rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap using a hybrid field ionization and state-selective depumping technique. Our results reveal significant deviations of the measured transition rates from theory for well-defined ranges of the principal quantum number. We assume that the most likely cause for...