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

Published

November 28, 2011

Author(s)

Andrew D. Ludlow, Nathan D. Lemke, Jeffrey A. Sherman, Christopher W. Oates, G. Quemener, J. von Stecher, A.M. Rey

Abstract

Recently, ρ-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 5 × 10^-18 fractional frequency level. We report inelastic two-body loss rates for ³P₀-³P₀ and ¹S₀ -³P 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.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

84

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

cold collision, collision shift, inelastic scatter, optical lattice clock, p-wave collision, two-body loss, ytterbium

Citation

Ludlow, A. , Lemke, N. , Sherman, J. , Oates, C. , Quemener, G. , von, J. and Rey, A. (2011), Cold-collision-shift cancelation and inelastic scattering in a Yb optical lattice clock, Physical Review A (Accessed October 11, 2025)