English

Cm$^{15+}$ and Bk$^{16+}$ ion clocks with enhanced sensitivity to new physics

Atomic Physics 2024-02-21 v1

Abstract

We perform calculations of electronic structure of Cm15+^{15+} and Bk16+^{16+} ions and demonstrate that they have transitions which combine the features of atomic optical clocks with the enhanced sensitivity to the variations of the fine structure constant α\alpha. The high sensitivity is due to large nuclear charge ZZ, high ionisation degree ZiZ_i and the effect of {\em level crossing}, which enables optical transitions between states of different configurations. These are the 6p1/25f5/26p_{1/2}-5f_{5/2} and 6p1/25f7/26p_{1/2}-5f_{7/2} transitions in the single valence electron approximation. Variation of α\alpha may be due to the interaction with scalar and pseudoscalar (axion) dark matter fields. Therefore, Cm15+^{15+} and Bk16+^{16+} clocks are promising candidates to search for these fields.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2311.18264,
  title  = {Cm$^{15+}$ and Bk$^{16+}$ ion clocks with enhanced sensitivity to new physics},
  author = {V. A. Dzuba and V. V. Flambaum},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.18264},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

6 pages, 1 figure, 3 tables