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.
Highlights
Highly-ionized atoms are of interest in various disciplines, including astronomy [1,2], spectroscopy [3,4,5], ion-surface physics [4,6], plasma diagnostics [7,8] and laboratory astrophysics [9,10].Recently, Atoms 2015, 3 theoretical studies have revealed special features that could make highly-ionized atoms ideal for novel applications
We present here recent developments at NIST, including the use of a unitary Penning trap [20] to isolate highly-ionized atoms at low energy [21], experiments with electron capture [22] and a different technique for measuring the radiative decay lifetime of a metastable state [23]
While there are various ways to produce a strong, uniform magnetic field given no constraints, the architecture of a two-magnet unitary Penning trap emphasizes certain features that are useful for atomic physics experiments: (1) a trap sufficiently compact that it can entirely fit into typical commercial vacuum chambers; (2) on-axis loading and dumping of highly-charged ions; (3) midplane access to allow the interaction of stored ions with laser or atomic beams; and (4) line-of-sight collection of light emitted by the stored ions
Summary
Highly-ionized atoms are of interest in various disciplines, including astronomy [1,2], spectroscopy [3,4,5], ion-surface physics [4,6], plasma diagnostics [7,8] and laboratory astrophysics [9,10]. Precise tests of fundamental physics have employed few-electron highly-charged ions in spectroscopic measurements of low-lying atomic levels to probe quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the high field regime (see, for example, [4,15,16] and the references therein). Theoretical studies show that the energy levels for one-electron ions in high angular momentum states can be calculated with high accuracy, comparable to the precision of state-of-the-art frequency metrology [18]. This simplicity of Rydberg atoms is potentially useful for measurements of fundamental constants. We present here recent developments at NIST, including the use of a unitary Penning trap [20] to isolate highly-ionized atoms at low energy [21], experiments with electron capture [22] and a different technique for measuring the radiative decay lifetime of a metastable state [23]
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