Hyper-Ramsey Spectroscopy of Optical Clock Transitions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel non-standard Ramsey spectroscopy method that uses tailored pulses to significantly reduce frequency shifts, enhancing the precision of optical clocks and interferometers, especially for challenging transitions.

Contribution

The paper presents a new Ramsey spectroscopy scheme with tailored pulses that drastically suppresses excitation-related frequency shifts, improving accuracy over traditional methods.

Findings

Suppression of field shifts by 2-4 orders of magnitude

Enhanced precision for optical clocks using two-photon and forbidden transitions

Potential for high-precision clocks with direct frequency comb spectroscopy

Abstract

We present non-standard optical Ramsey schemes that use pulses individually tailored in duration, phase, and frequency to cancel spurious frequency shifts related to the excitation itself. In particular, the field shifts and their uncertainties of Ramsey fringes can be radically suppressed (by 2-4 orders of magnitude) in comparison with the usual Ramsey method (using two equal pulses) as well as with single-pulse Rabi spectroscopy. Atom interferometers and optical clocks based on two-photon transitions, heavily forbidden transitions, or magnetically induced spectroscopy could significantly benefit from this method. In the latter case these frequency shifts can be suppressed considerably below a fractional level of 10^{-17}. Moreover, our approach opens the door for the high-precision optical clocks based on direct frequency comb spectroscopy.