Forbidden Transitions in a Magneto-Optical Trap

We report the first observation of a non-dipole transition in an ultra-cold atomic vapor. We excite the 3P-4P electric quadrupole (E2) transition in \(^{23}\)Na confined in a Magneto-Optical Trap(MOT), and demonstrate its application to high-resolution spectroscopy by making the first measurement of the hyperfine structure of the 4P\(_{1/2}\) level and extracting the magnetic dipole constant A \(=\) 30.6 \(\pm\) 0.1 MHz. We use cw OODR (Optical-Optical Double Resonance) accompanied by photoinization to probe the transition.