An optical atomic clock based on a highly charged ion
An optical atomic clock based on a highly charged ion
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DOI：
10.1038/s41586-022-05245-4
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发表时间：
2022-05
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
S. King;L. J. Spiess;P. Micke;A. Wilzewski;T. Leopold;E. Benkler;R. Lange;N. Huntemann;A. Surzhykov;V. Yerokhin;José R. Crespo López-Urrutia;P. O. Schmidt
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文献类型：
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作者：
S. King;L. J. Spiess;P. Micke;A. Wilzewski;T. Leopold;E. Benkler;R. Lange;N. Huntemann;A. Surzhykov;V. Yerokhin;José R. Crespo López-Urrutia;P. O. Schmidt
光学原子钟是有史以来最精确的测量装置，在基础科学和技术中有许多应用。高电荷态离子（HCI）作为一类新的基准，用于基础物理学的高精度时钟和精密测试，长期以来一直受到其极端原子性质的推动，与单电荷态离子或中性原子相比，它们对外部电场和磁场扰动的敏感性降低。在这里，我们提出了实现这类新的时钟，在Ar13+的光磁偶极跃迁的基础上。其综合评估的系统频率不确定度为2.2 × 10− 17，与许多运行中的光学时钟相当。从时钟比较，我们提高了8个和9个数量级的绝对跃迁频率和同位素位移（40 Ar versus36 Ar）的不确定性，分别。这些测量使我们能够研究基本上未被探索的量子电动力学（QED）核反冲，作为改进的同位素位移计算的一部分，这将以前理论的不确定性降低了三倍。这项工作建立了HCI中的禁戒光学跃迁，作为尖端光学时钟和未来高灵敏度搜索标准模型之外的物理的参考。
Optical atomic clocks are the most accurate measurement devices ever constructed and have found many applications in fundamental science and technology, –. The use of highly charged ions (HCI) as a new class of references for highest-accuracy clocks and precision tests of fundamental physics, , , , , , –has long been motivated by their extreme atomic properties and reduced sensitivity to perturbations from external electric and magnetic fields compared with singly charged ions or neutral atoms. Here we present the realization of this new class of clocks, based on an optical magnetic-dipole transition in Ar13+. Its comprehensively evaluated systematic frequency uncertainty of 2.2 × 10−17is comparable with that of many optical clocks in operation. From clock comparisons, we improve by eight and nine orders of magnitude on the uncertainties for the absolute transition frequency and isotope shift (40Ar versus36Ar) (ref. ), respectively. These measurements allow us to investigate the largely unexplored quantum electrodynamic (QED) nuclear recoil, presented as part of improved calculations of the isotope shift, which reduce the uncertainty of previous theory by a factor of three. This work establishes forbidden optical transitions in HCI as references for cutting-edge optical clocks and future high-sensitivity searches for physics beyond the standard model.