Abstract
One of the key systematic effects limiting the performance of state-of-the-art optical clocks is the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift. Here, we demonstrate unusually low sensitivity of a 1.14 μm inner-shell clock transition in neutral Tm atoms to BBR. By direct polarizability measurements, we infer a differential polarizability of the clock levels of −0.063(30) atomic units corresponding to a fractional frequency BBR shift of only 2.3(1.1) × 10−18 at room temperature. This amount is several orders of magnitude smaller than that of the best optical clocks using neutral atoms (Sr, Yb, Hg) and is competitive with that of ion optical clocks (Al+, Lu+). Our results allow the development of lanthanide-based optical clocks with a relative uncertainty at the 10−17 level.
Highlights
One of the key systematic effects limiting the performance of state-of-the-art optical clocks is the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift
To extend the current limit in frequency stability and accuracy, there is a continuous search for new species, with reduced sensitivity to external electric fields
The possibility to use such transitions for optical clocks was studied only theoretically[32,33,34]. In this Article, we report on precision spectroscopy of the inner-shell clock transition |J = 7/2, F = 4, mF = 0〉 → |J = 5/2, F = 3, mF = 0〉 between the fine-structure components of the ground electronic state in the single stable isotope 169Tm at a wavelength of 1.14 μm with the natural linewidth of γ = 1.2 Hz
Summary
One of the key systematic effects limiting the performance of state-of-the-art optical clocks is the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift. We demonstrate unusually low sensitivity of a 1.14 μm inner-shell clock transition in neutral Tm atoms to BBR. We infer a differential polarizability of the clock levels of −0.063(30) atomic units corresponding to a fractional frequency BBR shift of only 2.3(1.1) × 10−18 at room temperature. This amount is several orders of magnitude smaller than that of the best optical clocks using neutral atoms (Sr, Yb, Hg) and is competitive with that of ion optical clocks (Al+, Lu+). In 2004, the strong shielding effect for Tm–He collisions was confirmed in ref
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