No Arabic abstract
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme which effects hyperfine averaging during a Ramsey interrogation of a clock transition. The method eliminates the need to average over multiple optical transitions, reduces the sensitivity of the clock to its environment, and reduces inhomogeneous broadening in a multi-ion clock. The method is compatible with auto-balanced Ramsey spectroscopy, which facilitates elimination of residual shifts due to imperfect implementation and ac Stark shifts from the optical probe. We demonstrate the scheme using correlation spectroscopy of the $^1S_0$-to-$^3D_1$ clock transition in a three-ion Lu+ clock. From the demonstration we are able to provide a measurement of the $^3D_1$ quadrupole moment, $Theta(^3D_1)=0.634(9)ea_0^2$.
We demonstrate precision measurement and control of inhomogeneous broadening in a multi-ion clock consisting of three $^{176}$Lu$^+$ ions. Microwave spectroscopy between hyperfine states in the $^3D_1$ level is used to characterise differential systematic shifts between ions, most notably those associated with the electric quadrupole moment. By appropriate alignment of the magnetic field, we demonstrate suppression of these effects to the $sim 10^{-17}$ level relative to the $^1S_0leftrightarrow{}^3D_1$ optical transition frequency. Correlation spectroscopy on the optical transition demonstrates the feasibility of a 10s Ramsey interrogation in the three ion configuration with a corresponding projection noise limited stability of $sigma(tau)=8.2times 10^{-17}/sqrt{tau}$
We measure the dynamic differential scalar polarizabilities at 10.6 $mu$m for two candidate clock transitions in $^{176}mathrm{Lu}^+$. The fractional black body radiation (BBR) shifts at 300 K for the $^1S_0 leftrightarrow {^3D_1}$ and $^1S_0 leftrightarrow {^3D_2}$ transitions are evaluated to be $-1.36,(9) times 10^{-18}$ and $2.70 ,(21) times10^{-17}$, respectively. The former is the lowest of any established optical atomic clock.
We present a method that uses radio-frequency pulses to cancel the quadrupole shift in optical clock transitions. Quadrupole shifts are an inherent inhomogeneous broadening mechanism in trapped ion crystals, limiting current optical ion clocks to work with a single probe ion. Cancelling this shift at each interrogation cycle of the ion frequency allows the use of $N>1$ ions in clocks, thus reducing the uncertainty in the clock frequency by $sqrt{N}$ according to the standard quantum limit. Our sequence relies on the tensorial nature of the quadrupole shift, and thus also cancels other tensorial shifts, such as the tensor ac stark shift. We experimentally demonstrate our sequence on three and seven $^{88}mathrm{Sr}^{+}$ ions trapped in a linear Paul trap, using correlation spectroscopy. We show a reduction of the quadrupole shift difference between ions to $approx20$ mHzs level where other shifts, such as the relativistic 2$^{mathrm{nd}}$ order Doppler shift, are expected to limit our spectral resolution. In addition, we show that using radio-frequency dynamic decoupling we can also cancel the effect of 1$^{mathrm{st}}$ order Zeeman shifts.
We consider hyperfine-mediated effects for clock transitions in $^{176}$Lu$^+$. Mixing of fine structure levels due to the hyperfine interaction bring about modifications to Lande $g$-factors and the quadrupole moment for a given state. Explicit expressions are derived for both $g$-factor and quadrupole corrections, for which leading order terms arise from the nuclear magnetic dipole coupling. High accuracy measurements of the $g$-factors for the $^1S_0$ and $^3D_1$ hyperfine levels are carried out, which provide an experimental determination of the leading order correction terms.
In atomic systems, clock states feature a zero projection of the total angular momentum and thus a low sensitivity to magnetic fields. This makes them widely used for metrological applications like atomic fountains or gravimeters. Here, we show that a mixture of two such non-magnetic states still display magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. Using high resolution spectroscopy of a planar gas of $^{87}$Rb atoms with a controlled in-plane shape, we explore the effective isotropic and extensive character of these interactions and demonstrate their tunability. Our measurements set strong constraints on the relative values of the s-wave scattering lengths $a_{ij}$ involving the two clock states.