Towards metrology with highly charged isomeric ions from antiproton annihilation

TL;DR

This paper explores using antiproton annihilation to produce highly charged isomeric ions for precision metrology, identifying promising atomic candidates with suitable hyperfine transitions and long-lived excited states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to generate and identify specific isomeric ions via antiproton annihilation for advanced metrological applications.

Findings

Identified promising isomeric ions in Y, Nb, Rh, In, and Sb.

Hyperfine transitions are in the infrared range.

Excited state lifetimes are suitable for precision measurements.

Abstract

We describe how the annihilation of antiprotons can be utilized to generate highly charged isomeric ions in an ion-trap setup. We identify optical transitions in the hyperfine splitting of Hydrogen-like atoms composed of an isomer and a single electron in the ground state. We identify promising candidates in the isomers of Y, Nb, Rh, In, and Sb, for which the hyperfine transition lies in the infrared and whose excited state level lifetime is in the hundreds of milliseconds, which is suitable for metrology applications.