Quantum interference effects in an ensemble of ${}^{229}$Th nuclei interacting with coherent light

Abstract

As a unique feature, the ${}^{229}$Th nucleus has an isomeric transition in the vacuum ultraviolet that can be accessed by optical lasers. The interference effects occurring in the interaction between coherent optical light and an ensemble of ${}^{229}$Th nuclei are investigated theoretically. We consider the scenario of nuclei doped in vacuum ultraviolet-vacuum ultraviolet transparent crystals and take into account the effect of different doping sites and therefore different lattice fields that broaden the nuclear transition width. This effect is shown to come in interplay with interference effects due to the hyperfine splitting of the ground and isomeric nuclear states. We investigate possible experimentally available situations involving two-, three- and four-level schemes of quadrupole sublevels of the ground and isomeric nuclear states coupling to one or two coherent fields. Specific configurations which offer clear signatures of the isomer excitation advantageous for the more precise experimental determination of the transition energy are identified. Furthermore, it is shown that population trapping into the isomeric state can be achieved. This paves the way for further nuclear quantum optics applications with ${}^{229}$Th such as nuclear coherent control.

14 papes, 13 figures

References in corpus (15)

• Enhanced effect of temporal variation of the fine structure constant in diatomic molecules
• Controlled Dicke Subradiance from a Large Cloud of Two-Level Systems
• Proposal for a Nuclear Gamma-Ray Laser of Optical Range
• Performance of a 229 Thorium solid-state nuclear clock
• Excitation of the isomeric ^{229m}Th nuclear state via an electronic bridge process in ^{229}Th^+
• Quantum Interferences in Cooperative Dicke Emission from Spatial Variation of Laser Phase
• Theory of nuclear excitation by electron capture for heavy ions
• Single-Photon Entanglement in the keV Regime via Coherent Control of Nuclear Forward Scattering
• Coherent storage and phase modulation of single hard x-ray photons using nuclear excitons
• Electric dipole-forbidden nuclear transitions driven by super-intense laser fields
• Nuclear effects in atomic transitions
• Coherence-enhanced optical determination of the ${}^{229}$Th isomeric transition
• A three-beam setup for coherently controlling nuclear state population
• Cooperative effects in nuclear excitation with coherent x-ray light
• Coherent control of nuclear forward scattering

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The ${}^{229}$Th isomer: prospects for a nuclear optical clock
• Radioluminescence and photoluminescence of Th:CaF${}_2$ crystals
• The theory of direct laser excitation of nuclear transitions
• The electric quadrupole channel of the 7.8 eV ${}^{229}\mathrm{Th}$ transition
• Measuring the Th-229 nuclear isomer transition with U-233 doped crystals
• Collective effects in ${}^{229}$Th-doped crystals
• Cavity quantum interferences with three-level atoms