Pr10+ as a candidate for a high-accuracy optical clock for tests of fundamental physics

TL;DR

This paper proposes Pr10+ as a promising high-accuracy optical clock candidate with high sensitivity to fundamental physics variations, supported by advanced energy level calculations and experimental benchmarks.

Contribution

It introduces Pr10+ as a novel optical clock candidate with detailed theoretical calculations and experimental validation, enhancing precision in fundamental physics tests.

Findings

Calculated energy levels with 0.1% uncertainty

Benchmarked transition energies with experimental data

Provided hyperfine-structure constants for clock states

Abstract

We propose In-like Pr10+ as a candidate for the development of a high-accuracy optical clock with high sensitivity to a time variation of the fine-structure constant, (\dot alpha}/alpha, as well as favorable experimental systematics. We calculate its low-lying energy levels by combining the configuration interaction and the coupled cluster method, achieving uncertainties as low as 0.1%, and improving previous work. We benchmark these results by comparing our calculations for the (5s^2 5p 2P_1/2) - (5s^2 5p 2P_3/2) transition in Pr10+ with a dedicated measurement and for Pr9+ with a recent experiment, respectively. In addition, we report calculated hyperfine-structure constants for the clock and logic states in Pr10+.