Experimental determination of the nuclear magnetic octupole moment of $^{137}$Ba$^+$ ion

TL;DR

This paper reports highly precise measurements of hyperfine intervals in a single trapped $^{137}$Ba$^+$ ion, leading to improved accuracy in nuclear magnetic octupole moment determination and atomic structure validation.

Contribution

It provides the most accurate hyperfine interval measurements for $^{137}$Ba$^+$, enabling precise extraction of the nuclear magnetic octupole moment and validation of atomic models.

Findings

Three orders of magnitude improvement in hyperfine interval accuracy.

Tenfold improvement in the $g_J$ value for the 5D$_{5/2}$ level.

Independent measurement supporting previous results and atomic calculations.

Abstract

We perform precision measurements on the 5D$_{5/2}$ manifold hyperfine intervals of a single trapped ion, $^{137}$Ba$^+$. RF spectroscopy is used to measure the hyperfine intervals to an accuracy of a few Hz. Our results provide a three orders of magnitude improvement in accuracy over previous work and also provide a 10-fold improvement in the value of $g_J$ for this level. These results complement our previous work on the 5D$_{3/2}$ manifold of $^{137}$Ba$^+$, providing an independent measurement of the nuclear octupole, and a consistency check on atomic structure calculations.