Frequency metrology in quantum degenerate helium: Direct measurement of the 2 3S1 - 2 1S0 transition

Abstract

Precision spectroscopy of simple atomic systems has refined our understanding of the fundamental laws of quantum physics. In particular, helium spectroscopy has played a crucial role in describing two-electron interactions, determining the fine-structure constant and extracting the size of the helium nucleus. Here we present a measurement of the doubly-forbidden 1557-nanometer transition connecting the two metastable states of helium (the lowest energy triplet state 2 3S1 and first excited singlet state 2 1S0), for which quantum electrodynamic and nuclear size effects are very strong. This transition is fourteen orders of magnitude weaker than the most predominantly measured transition in helium. Ultracold, sub-microkelvin, fermionic 3He and bosonic 4He atoms are used to obtain a precision of 8.10^{-12}, providing a stringent test of two-electron quantum electrodynamic theory and of nuclear few-body theory.

14 pages, 6 figures

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Cited by in corpus (58)

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• Testing fundamental interactions on the helium atom
• QED tests with highly-charged ions
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• Hydrogen molecular ions for improved determination of fundamental constants
• Direct measurement of the ${}^3$He${}^{+}$ magnetic moments
• Widely tunable, narrow linewidth external-cavity gain chip laser for spectroscopy between 1.0 - 1.1 um
• Higher-order recoil corrections for triplet states of the helium atom
• Ab initio calculation of nuclear structure corrections in muonic atoms
• Theory of the Lamb shift and Fine Structure in muonic ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ ions and the muonic ${}^3\mathrm{He}{-}^4\mathrm{He}$ Isotope Shift
• Zemach moments of 3He and 4He
• Higher-order recoil corrections for singlet states of the helium atom
• XUV frequency comb metrology on the ground state of helium
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• Two-photon exchange correction to $2S$-$2P$ splitting in muonic helium-3 ions
• The next generation of laser spectroscopy experiments using light muonic atoms
• Quantum electrodynamic calculation of the hyperfine structure of 3He
• Relativistic corrections to the Bethe logarithm for the $2^{3}S$ and $2^{3}P$ states of He
• Theory of the n=2 levels in muonic helium-3 ions
• Magic wavelengths for the $2{}^{3}S\to 2{}^{1}S$ transition in helium
• Experiments towards resolving the proton charge radius puzzle
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• Nonradiative ${\alpha }^{7}m$ QED effects in Lamb shift of helium triplet states
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• QED calculation of ionization energies of $1snd$ states in helium
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• Thermal Correction to the Molar Polarizability of a Boltzmann Gas
• A simple 2 W continuous-wave laser system for trapping ultracold metastable helium atoms at the 319.8 nm magic wavelength
• Revised ${}^3$He nuclear charge radius due to electronic hyperfine mixing
• Microwave spectroscopy of the $1\mathrm{s}n\mathrm{p}{}^3{\mathrm{P}}_J$ fine structure of high Rydberg states in ${}^4$He
• Pauli blocking of stimulated emission in a degenerate Fermi gas
• Doppler-free intermodulated fluorescence spectroscopy of ${}^{4}He$ $2^{3}P-3^{1,3}D$ transitions at 588 nm with a one-watt compact laser system
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• Direct Measurement of the Forbidden $2^3{S}_1\to 3^3{S}_1$ Atomic Transition in Helium
• Relativistic corrections to the thermal interaction of bound particles
• Non-exponential one-body loss in a Bose-Einstein condensate
• Ab initio interaction potentials and scattering lengths for ultracold mixtures of metastable helium and alkali-metal atoms
• Production of a highly degenerate Fermi gas of metastable helium-3 atoms
• Thermal corrections of lowest order for a helium atom
• Completing the optical spectroscopy of the $6p_J$ manifold: the $5p_{3/2}\to 6p_{1/2}$ electric dipole forbidden transition in atomic rubidium
• Simple method for producing Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium using a single beam optical dipole trap
• Understanding the proton radius puzzle: Nuclear structure effects in light muonic atoms
• Proposal for suppressing ac Stark shift in the He($2{}^3{S}_1\to 3{}^3{S}_1$) two-photon transition using magic wavelengths
• Preparation of individual magnetic sub-levels of ${}^4$He($2^3$S${}_1$) in a supersonic beam using laser optical pumping and magnetic hexapole focusing
• Natural line profile asymmetry
• Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms
• Nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamic approach to polarizabilities of light atoms
• Frequency measurements of transitions from the $2^3{P}_2$ state to the $5^1{D}_2$, $5^3{S}_1$, and $5^{3}D$ states in ultracold helium