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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 55: Poster III
Q 55.1: Poster
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 16:30–19:00, VMP 8 Foyer
Multi Ion Optical Clocks — •Tanja Mehlstäubler — QUEST at PTB, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig
The recently established excellence cluster QUEST (Quantum Engineering and Space Time Research) addresses the questions of quantum sensors and tests of fundamental theories. With time and frequency being the most accurate measurable physical quantities today, optical clocks will allow us to search for deviations in the predictions of Einsteins general relativity, test modern unifying theories and develop new sensors for gravity and navigation. In this context, relative frequency inaccuracies as low as 10−18 are targeted.
Optical ion clocks have the potential to resolve time and frequency with such ultra-high precision, but would require integration times of many days to weeks, posing even limits on the systematic evaluation at such high levels of accuracy. The QUEST junior research group at PTB is addressing this problem with a new ansatz, that is aiming at the design and test of new ion trap geometries that can acommodate many (10-100) ions. Today, the most promising clock candidates in terms of sensitivity to environment and systematic effects are atoms with transitions between 1S0 and 3P0 states. Due to the lack of higher electronic moments in these states, such as quadrupole moments, utilizing trap geometries with many ions is feasible.
We will present our new project towards multi-ion clocks, discuss recent results from traps used in quantum computation with trapped ions and strategies to control micromotion and heating rates down to the 10−18 regime.