2020/07/16 by Di Xiao, Jiguang Li, Wesley C. Campbell +5
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Dipole #Excited state #Hyperfine structure #Magnetic moment #Multipole expansion #Nuclear structure #Physics #Quadrupole #Quantum mechanics #nucl-th #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.102.022810
published as Phys. Rev. A 102, 022810 (2020)
arxiv created 2020/07/16 · openalex created_date 2020/07/23 · openalex publication_date 2020/08/14 · arxiv updated 2020/08/18 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The hyperfine structure (HFS) of atomic energy levels arises due to interactions of atomic electrons with a hierarchy of nuclear multipole moments, including magnetic dipole, electric quadrupole, and higher rank moments. Recently, a determination of the magnetic octupole moment of the 173Yb nucleus was reported from HFS measurements in neutral 173Yb [A. K. Singh et al., Phys. Rev. A 87, 012512 (2013)] and is four orders of magnitude larger than the nuclear theory prediction. Considering this substantial discrepancy between the spectroscopically extracted value and nuclear theory, here we propose to use an alternative system to resolve this tension---a singly charged ion of the same 173Yb isotope. Utilizing the substantial suite of tools developed around Yb+ for quantum information applications, we propose to extract nuclear octupole and hexadecapole moments from measuring hyperfine splittings in the extremely long-lived first excited state [4f13(2Fo)6s2, J=7/2] of 173Yb+. We present results of atomic structure calculations in support of the proposed measurements.