Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates magneto-optical trapping of multiple mercury isotopes, including the heaviest non-radioactive atom, and proposes a highly accurate optical lattice clock based on Hg with potential for fundamental physics research.

Contribution

It reports the first magneto-optical trapping of Hg isotopes and proposes a novel optical lattice clock with systematic accuracy better than 10^-18.

Findings

Successfully trapped six Hg isotopes, including four bosons and two fermions.

Proposed Hg-based optical lattice clock with <10^-18 systematic accuracy.

Potential for detecting variations in fundamental constants.

Abstract

We report a vapor-cell magneto-optical trapping of Hg isotopes on the ${}^1S_0-{}^3P_1$ intercombination transition. Six abundant isotopes, including four bosons and two fermions, were trapped. Hg is the heaviest non-radioactive 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.