English

Precision measurement of atomic isotope shifts using a two-isotope entangled state

Atomic Physics 2019-11-20 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment Nuclear Experiment Quantum Physics

Abstract

Atomic isotope shifts (ISs) are the isotope-dependent energy differences in the atomic electron energy levels. These shifts serve an important role in atomic and nuclear physics, and particularly in the latter as signatures of nuclear structure. Recently ISs have been suggested as unique probes of beyond Standard Model (SM) physics, under the condition that they be determined significantly more precisely than current state of the art. In this work we present a simple and robust method for measuring ISs with ions in a Paul trap, by taking advantage of Hilbert subspaces that are insensitive to common-mode noise yet sensitive to the IS. Using this method we evaluate the IS of the 5S1/24D5/25S_{1/2}\leftrightarrow4D_{5/2} transition in 86Sr+^{86}\text{Sr}^+ and 88Sr+^{88}\text{Sr}^+ with a 1.6×10111.6\times10^{-11} relative uncertainty to be 570,264,063.435(9) Hz. Furthermore, we detect a relative difference of 3.46(23)×1083.46(23)\times10^{-8} between the orbital g-factors of the electrons in the 4D5/24D_{5/2} level of the two isotopes. Our method is relatively easy to implement and is indifferent to element or isotope, paving the way for future tabletop searches for new physics and posing interesting prospects for testing quantum many-body calculations and for the study of nuclear structure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1906.05770,
  title  = {Precision measurement of atomic isotope shifts using a two-isotope entangled state},
  author = {Tom Manovitz and Ravid Shaniv and Yotam Shapira and Roee Ozeri and Nitzan Akerman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.05770},
  year   = {2019}
}