Investigation of Metastable Magnesium Atoms

Abstract

This talk describes improvements to the magnesium atomic clock setup and experiments performed with magnesium atoms in both a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and in an atomic beamline.

Optical atomic clocks have over the last couple of years continuously improved the level of performance and recently accuracy at the 17th decimal level has been achieved [1]. Currently a lot of new atomic clocks are under construction with a wide variety of atomic species.

Magnesium is a promising candidate for an optical atomic clock due to its narrow clock transition and low sensitivity to blackbody radiation. However it has proven technically challenging to obtain a sample of magnesium atoms at temperatures below 1 mK. In this talk different approaches to obtaining a sample of ultracold magnesium atoms will be presented. Furthermore spectroscopic measurements of atomic properties related to the metastable 3PJ-states are presented.

[1] T. Rosenband et al. Science 319, 1808 (2008)

A copy of the thesis can be obtained by contacting Kasper T. Therkildsen, kaspertt@fys.ku.dk

Evaluation committee

Dr. Sebastien Bizé, LNE-SYRTE, l'Obervatoire de Paris

Dr. Signe Seidelin, Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble

Associate Professor Jes Henningsen (Chariman), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

Supervisor

Associate Professor Jan W. Thomsen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen