Determination of the 5d6s 3D1 state lifetime and blackbody radiation clock shift in Yb

TL;DR

This paper precisely measures the lifetime and electric dipole matrix element of the 5d6s 3D1 state in ytterbium, enabling accurate correction of blackbody radiation shifts in optical lattice clocks.

Contribution

It provides the first high-precision experimental determination of the key matrix element and radiative lifetimes relevant for ytterbium optical clocks, improving accuracy of blackbody shift corrections.

Findings

Determined the 5d6s 3D1 state lifetime with high precision.

Measured the electric dipole matrix element using two independent methods.

Quantified the blackbody radiation shift with 0.05% accuracy.

Abstract

The Stark shift of the ytterbium optical clock transition due to room temperature blackbody radiation is dominated by a static Stark effect, which was recently measured to high accuracy [J. A. Sherman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 153002 (2012)]. However, room temperature operation of the clock at 10^{-18} inaccuracy requires a dynamic correction to this static approximation. This dynamic correction largely depends on a single electric dipole matrix element for which theoretically and experimentally derived values disagree significantly. We determine this important matrix element by two independent methods, which yield consistent values. Along with precise radiative lifetimes of 6s6p 3P1 and 5d6s 3D1, we report the clock's blackbody radiation shift to 0.05% precision.