Cavity-QED determination of the natural linewidth of the ⁸⁷Sr millihertz clock transition with 30μHz resolution

2020/07/15 by Juan A. Muniz, Dylan J. Young, Julia Cline +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Frequency and Time Standards #Algorithm #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic clock #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Computer science #Data mining #Detector #Electronic engineering #Excited state #Laser #Laser linewidth #Measure (data warehouse) #Observable #Optics #Physics #Population #Quantum mechanics #Sensitivity (control systems) #cond-mat.quant-gas #physics.atom-ph #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.3.023152

published as Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023152 (2021) · 6 pages main text, 14 pages SI

arxiv created 2020/07/15 · openalex publication_date 2020/07/15 · openalex created_date 2020/07/23 · arxiv updated 2021/06/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We present a new method for determining the intrinsic natural linewidth or lifetime of exceptionally long-lived optical excited states. Such transitions are key to the performance of state-of-the-art atomic clocks, have potential applications in searches for fundamental physics and gravitational wave detectors, as well as novel quantum many-body phenomena. With longer lifetime optical transitions, sensitivity is increased, but so far it has proved challenging to determine the natural lifetime of many of these long lived optical excited states because standard population decay detection techniques become experimentally difficult. Here, we determine the ratio of a poorly known ultranarrow linewidth transition (³P₀ to ¹S₀ in ⁸⁷Sr) to that of another narrow well known transition (³P₁ to ¹S₀) by coupling the two transitions to a single optical cavity and performing interleaved nondestructive measurements of the interaction strengths of the atoms with cavity modes near each transition frequency. We use this approach to determine the natural linewidth of the clock transition ³P₀ to ¹S₀ in ⁸⁷Sr to be γ₀/(2π) = 1.35(3)~mHz or τ= 118(3)~s. The 30~μHz resolution implies that we could detect states with lifetimes just below 2 hours, and with straightforward future improvements, we could detect states with lifetimes up to 15 hours, using measurement trials that last only a few hundred milliseconds, eliminating the need for long storage times in optical potentials.

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