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Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 053001 (2008) [4 pages]

Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks

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H. Hachisu1,2, K. Miyagishi1, S. G. Porsev3,4, A. Derevianko4,5, V. D. Ovsiannikov6, V. G. Pal’chikov7, M. Takamoto1,2, and H. Katori1,2
1Department of Applied Physics, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
2CREST, Japan Science and Technology Agency, 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan
3Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, Gatchina, Leningrad District, 188300, Russia
4Physics Department, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
5Laboratoire Aimé Cotton, Bâtiment 505, Campus d’Orsay, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France
6Physics Department, Voronezh State University, Universitetskaya ploschad 1, 394006, Voronezh, Russia
7Institute of Metrology for Time and Space at National Research Institute for Physical-Technical and Radiotechnical Measurements, Mendeleevo, Moscow Region, 141579, Russia

Received 16 October 2007; revised 28 November 2007; published 8 February 2008

We report vapor-cell magneto-optical trapping of Hg isotopes on the 1S0-3P1 intercombination transition. Six abundant isotopes, including four bosons and two fermions, were trapped. Hg is the heaviest nonradioactive atom trapped so far, which enables sensitive atomic searches for “new physics” beyond the standard model. We propose an accurate optical lattice clock based on Hg and evaluate its systematic accuracy to be better than 10-18. Highly accurate and stable Hg-based clocks will provide a new avenue for the research of optical lattice clocks and the time variation of the fine-structure constant.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.053001
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.053001
PACS:
37.10.Gh, 06.30.Ft, 31.15.V−, 32.10.Dk
 
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