Highly charged ions for atomic clocks and search for variation of the fine structure constant

Abstract

We review a number of highly charged ions which have optical transitions suitable for building extremely accurate atomic clocks. This includes ions from Hf${}^{12+}$ to U${}^{34+}$, which have the $4f^{12}$ configuration of valence electrons, the Ir${}^{17+}$ ion, which has a hole in almost filled $4f$ subshell, the Ho${}^{14+}$, Cf${}^{15+}$, Es${}^{17+}$ and Es${}^{16+}$ ions. Clock transitions in most of these ions are sensitive to variation of the fine structure constant, $\alpha$ ($\alpha =e^2/\hslash c$). E.g., californium and einsteinium ions have largest known sensitivity to $\alpha$-variation while holmium ion looks as the most suitable ion for experimental study. We study the spectra of the ions and their features relevant to the use as frequency standards.

5 pages, 4 figures, based on talk presented at TCP2014 conference, Takamatsu, Japan, 4 Dec. 2014

References in corpus (10)

• Enhanced laboratory sensitivity to variation of the fine-structure constant using highly-charged ions
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• Relativistic corrections to transition frequencies of Ag I, Dy I, Ho I, Yb II, Yb III, Au I and Hg II and search for variation of the fine structure constant
• Highly charged ions with E1, M1, and E2 transitions within laser range
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• Study of highly-charged Ag-like and In-like ions for the development of atomic clocks and search for $\alpha$-variation
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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Quadruply Ionized Barium as a Candidate for a High-Accuracy Optical Clock
• Pr10+ as a candidate for a high-accuracy optical clock for tests of fundamental physics
• Using optical clock transitions in Cu II and Yb III for time-keeping and search for new physics
• Coulomb crystallization of xenon highly charged ions in a laser-cooled Ca+ matrix