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Atoms

Experiments with Highly-Ionized Atoms in Unitary Penning Traps

Shannon Fogwell Hoogerheide, Aung Naing, Joan Dreiling, Samuel M. Brewer, Nicholas D. Guise, Joseph N. Tan

Published Aug 14, 2015• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Highly-ionized atoms with special properties have been proposed for interesting applications, including potential candidates for a new generation of optical atomic clocks at the one part in 1019 level of precision, quantum information processing and tests of fundamental theory. The proposed atomic systems are largely unexplored. Recent developments at NIST are described, including the isolation of highly-ionized atoms at low energy in unitary Penning traps and the use of these traps for the precise measurement of radiative decay lifetimes (demonstrated with a forbidden transition in Kr17+), as well as for studying electron capture processes.

DOI
10.3390/atoms3030367

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Highly-ionized atoms with special properties have been proposed for interesting applications, including potential candidates for a new generation of optical atomic clocks at the one part in 1019 level of precision, quantum information processing and tests of fundamental theory. The proposed atomic systems are largely unexplored. Recent developments at NIST are described, including the isolation of highly-ionized atoms at low energy in unitary Penning traps and the use of these traps for the precise measurement of radiative decay lifetimes (demonstrated with a forbidden transition in Kr17+), as well as for studying electron capture processes.
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We describe some recent experiments that use a new Penning trap to trap and laser‐cool more than 105 Be+ ions. In this wrok the Coulomb coupling parameter was estimated to by typically greter than 100 and in some cases greater than 300. Shell structure was difficult to observe in the ion fluorescence from these large clouds. An initial Bragg scattering experiment to obtain information on the ion correlations is described. We also briefly review our work on the electrostatic modes of a Penning trap plasma including the use fo the modes to diagnose the shape and density of a cryogenic electron plasma. Some applications of laser‐cooled plasmas in Penning traps, such as atomic clocks, are discussed.
Frequency and its inverse, time, are the most accurately measured quantities. Historically, improvements in the accuracy of clocks have enabled advances in navigation, communication, and science. Since 1967, the definition of the International System (SI) second has been based on the frequency of a microwave transition in cesium, and present day cesium atomic clocks have a fractional uncertainty near 10-16. Recently, a new type of atomic clock based on optical transitions has been developed, with a current fractional uncertainty near 10-18 (approximately one second divided by the age of the universe), and they are rapidly improving. This talk presents a brief summary of the development of optical atomic clocks, with a focus on the Al+ quantum-logic clock developed at NIST. We discuss the current state-of-the-art in optical clock performance, and describe new applications in sensing and fundamental physics. Future directions in optical atomic clock research are also considered.
We describe some recent experiments that use a new Penning trap to trap and laser‐cool more than 105 Be+ ions. In this wrok the Coulomb coupling parameter was estimated to by typically greter than 100 and in some cases greater than 300. Shell structure was difficult to observe in the ion fluorescence from these large clouds. An initial Bragg scattering experiment to obtain information on the ion correlations is described. We also briefly review our work on the electrostatic modes of a Penning trap plasma including the use fo the modes to diagnose the shape and density of a cryogenic electron plasma. Some applications of laser‐cooled plasmas in Penning traps, such as atomic clocks, are discussed.
Abstract Precision spectroscopy of atomic systems1 is an invaluable tool for the study of fundamental interactions and symmetries2. Recently, highly charged ions have been proposed to enable sensitive tests of physics beyond the standard model2–5 and the realization of high-accuracy atomic clocks3, 5, owing to their high sensitivity to fundamental physics and insensitivity to external perturbations, which result from the high binding energies of their outer electrons. However, the implementation of these ideas has been hindered by the low spectroscopic accuracies (of the order of parts per million) achieved so far6–8. Here we cool trapped, highly charged argon ions to the lowest temperature reported so far, and study them using coherent laser spectroscopy, achieving an increase in precision of eight orders of magnitude. We use quantum logic spectroscopy9, 10 to probe the forbidden optical transition in 40Ar13+ at a wavelength of 441 nanometres and measure its excited-state lifetime and g-factor. Our work unlocks the potential of highly charged ions as ubiquitous atomic systems for use in quantum information processing, as frequency standards and in highly sensitive tests of fundamental physics, such as searches for dark-matter candidates11 or violations of fundamental symmetries2.
For the past 15 years, tremendous progress within the fields of laser stabilization, optical frequency combs and atom cooling and trapping have allowed the realization of optical atomic clocks with unrivaled performances. These instruments can perform frequency comparisons with fractional uncertainties well below 10-17, finding applications in fundamental physics tests, relativistic geodesy and time and frequency metrology. Even though most optical clocks are currently laboratory setups, several proposals for using these clocks for field measurements or within an optical clock network have been published, and most of time and frequency metrology institutes have started to develop transportable optical clocks. For the purpose of this special issue, we chose to focus on trapped-ion optical clocks. Even though their short-term fractional frequency stability is impaired by a lower signal-to-noise ratio, they offer a high potential for compactness: trapped ions demand low optical powers and simple loading schemes, and can be trapped in small vacuum chambers. We review recent advances on the clock key components, including ion trap and ultra-stable optical cavity, as well as existing projects and experiments which draw the picture of what future transportable, single-ion optical clocks may resemble.