  Context. With the aid of stellar abundance analysis, it is possible to study
the galactic formation and evolution. Magnesium is an important element to
trace the alpha-element evolution in our Galaxy. For chemical abundance
analysis, such as magnesium abundance, accurate and complete atomic data are
essential. Inaccurate atomic data lead to uncertain abundances and prevent
discrimination between different evolution models. Aims. We study the spectrum
of neutral magnesium from laboratory measurements and theoretical calculations.
Our aim is to improve the oscillator strengths ( f -values) of Mg I lines and
to create a complete set of accurate atomic data, particularly for the near-IR
region. Methods. We derived oscillator strengths by combining the experimental
branching fractions with radiative lifetimes reported in the literature and
computed in this work. A hollow cathode discharge lamp was used to produce free
atoms in the plasma and a Fourier transform spectrometer recorded the
intensity-calibrated high-resolution spectra. In addition, we performed
theoretical calculations using the multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock program
ATSP2K. Results. This project provides a set of experimental and theoretical
oscillator strengths. We derived 34 experimental oscillator strengths. Except
from the Mg I optical triplet lines (3p 3^P^o_0,1,2 - 4s 3^S_1), these
oscillator strengths are measured for the first time. The theoretical
oscillator strengths are in very good agreement with the experimental data and
complement the missing transitions of the experimental data up to n = 7 from
even and odd parity terms. We present an evaluated set of oscillator strengths,
gf, with uncertainties as small as 5%. The new values of the Mg I optical
triplet line (3p 3^P^o_0,1,2 - 4s 3^S_1) oscillator strength values are ~0.08
dex larger than the previous measurements.
