Fine-structure constant sensitivity of the Th-229 nuclear clock transition

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the transition frequency of the $^{229}$Th nuclear clock is highly sensitive to variations in the fine-structure constant $\alpha$, revealing a potential three orders of magnitude enhancement over atomic clocks.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of the $\alpha$-sensitivity of the $^{229}$Th nuclear transition, incorporating recent high-precision measurements and discussing implications for fundamental physics.

Findings

Sensitivity factor $K=5900(2300)$ for $\alpha$-variation.

Three orders of magnitude enhancement over atomic clocks.

High sensitivity of nuclear quadrupole moment to nuclear volume changes.

Abstract

State-resolved laser spectroscopy at the 10$^{-12}$ precision level recently reported in $arXiv$:2406.18719 determined the fractional change in nuclear quadrupole moment between the ground and isomeric state of $^{229}\rm{Th}$, $\Delta Q_0/Q_0$=1.791(2) %. Assuming a prolate spheroid nucleus, this allows to quantify the sensitivity of the nuclear transition frequency to variations of the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ to $K=5900(2300)$, with the uncertainty dominated by the experimentally measured charge radius difference $\Delta \langle r^2 \rangle$ between the ground and isomeric state. This result indicates a three orders of magnitude enhancement over atomic clock schemes based on electron shell transitions. We find that $\Delta Q_0$ is highly sensitive to tiny changes in the nuclear volume, thus the constant volume approximation cannot be used to accurately relate changes in $\langle r^2 \rangle$ and $Q_0$. The difference between the experimental and estimated values in $\Delta Q_0/Q_0$ raises a further question on the octupole contribution to the alpha-sensitivity.