Quantum metrology to probe atomic parity nonconservation

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum metrology experiment using entangled states in decoherence-free subspaces to measure atomic parity nonconservation effects in heavy alkali ions like Ba+ and Ra+, aiming to improve measurement precision and address nuclear spin-dependent effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental approach employing entangled states and Ramsey measurements to detect parity violation in heavy ions, including addressing previously unmeasured nuclear spin-dependent effects.

Findings

Entangled states reduce measurement uncertainty compared to single ion measurements.

The proposed method enables measurement of nuclear spin-dependent parity violating effects.

Feasible experimental setup for probing atomic parity nonconservation in heavy ions.

Abstract

An entangled state prepared in a decoherence free sub-space together with a Ramsey type measurement can probe parity violation in heavy alkali ions like Ba+ or Ra+. Here we propose an experiment with Ba+ as an example to measure the small parity violating effect in this system. It has been shown that a measurement on a maximally correlated system will reduce the uncertainty as compared to that on a single ion measurement. In addition it also provides a feasible solution to measure the nuclear spin dependent part of the total parity violating light shift in an ionic system which has so far not been addressed.