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arXiv · 1712.02335

Probing Time Dilation in Coulomb Crystals in a high-precision Ion Trap

J. Keller·D. Kalincev·T. Burgermeister·A. P. Kulosa·A. Didier·T. Nordmann·J. Kiethe·T. E. Mehlstäubler
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Abstract

Trapped-ion optical clocks are capable of achieving systematic fractional frequency uncertainties of $10^{-18}$ and possibly below. However, the stability of current ion clocks is fundamentally limited by the weak signal of single-ion interrogation. We present an operational, scalable platform for extending clock spectroscopy to arrays of Coulomb crystals consisting of several tens of ions, while allowing systematic shifts as low as $10^{-19}$. Using a newly developed technique, we observe 3D excess micromotion amplitudes inside a Coulomb crystal with atomic spatial resolution and sub-nanometer amplitude uncertainties. We show that in ion Coulomb crystals of 400$μ$m and 2mm length, time dilation shifts of In${}^+$ ions due to micromotion can be close to $1\times10^{-19}$ and below $10^{-18}$, respectively. In previous ion traps, excess micromotion would have dominated the uncertainty budget for spectroscopy of even a few ions. By minimizing its contribution and providing a means to quantify it, this work opens up the path to precision spectroscopy in many-body ion systems, enabling entanglement-enhanced ion clocks and providing a well-controlled, strongly coupled quantum system.

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J. Keller, D. Kalincev, T. Burgermeister, A. P. Kulosa, A. Didier, T. Nordmann, J. Kiethe, T. E. Mehlstäubler. 2018-10-21. Probing Time Dilation in Coulomb Crystals in a high-precision Ion Trap. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevapplied.11.011002

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