Abstract
The angular dependence of polarization of the A-band emission from RbCl:$Pb^{2+}$ is measured at 13.4 K to determine the symmetry axes of the $Pb^{2+}-v^-_c$ dipoles. The results indicate that these centers posess tetragonal symmetry. This implies that $v^-_c$ is situated in the next-nearest-neighbor (nnn) position to the $Pb^{2+}$ ion. The polarization ratio of the A-band emission measured at various temperatures is found to be independent of the temperature. The temperature independence of polarization confirms that, for the ion, the Jahn-Teller effect reduced by strong spin-orbit interaction does not give rise to thermal depolarization.