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arXiv · 1108.1379

Cold collision shift cancelation and inelastic scattering in a Yb optical lattice clock

A. D. Ludlow·N. D. Lemke·J. A. Sherman·C. W. Oates·G. Quemener·J. von Stecher·A. M. Rey
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Abstract

Recently, p-wave cold collisions were shown to dominate the density-dependent shift of the clock transition frequency in a 171Yb optical lattice clock. Here we demonstrate that by operating such a system at the proper excitation fraction, the cold collision shift is canceled below the 5x10^{-18} fractional frequency level. We report inelastic two-body loss rates for 3P0-3P0 and 1S0-3P0 scattering. We also measure interaction shifts in an unpolarized atomic sample. Collision measurements for this spin-1/2 171Yb system are relevant for high performance optical clocks as well as strongly-interacting systems for quantum information and quantum simulation applications.

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A. D. Ludlow, N. D. Lemke, J. A. Sherman, C. W. Oates, G. Quemener, J. von Stecher, A. M. Rey. 2011-08-10. Cold collision shift cancelation and inelastic scattering in a Yb optical lattice clock. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.84.052724

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