2019/03/31 by D. Antypas, A. M. Fabricant, J. E. Stalnaker +3 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.100.012503
published as Phys. Rev. A 100, 012503 (2019) · 24 pages, 17 figures, 5 tables
arxiv created 2019/05/16 · arxiv updated 2019/07/04
We present a detailed description of experimental studies of the parity violation effect in an isotopic chain of atomic ytterbium (Yb), whose results were reported in a recent Letter [Antypas et al., Nat. Phys. 15, 120 (2019)]. We discuss the principle of these measurements, made on the Yb 6s2 1S0 → 5d6s 3D1 optical transition at 408 nm, describe the experimental apparatus, and give a detailed account of our studies of systematic effects in the experiment. Our results offer the first direct observation of the isotopic variation in the atomic parity violation effect, a variation which is in agreement with the prediction of the Standard Model. These measurements are used to constrain electron-proton and electron-neutron interactions, mediated by a light Z' boson.