Optical Ion Clock with Engineered Immunity to Motion-Induced Frequency Shifts — E8 Intelligence Research
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Spectroscopic frequency shifts due to residual motion of the probed atoms significantly contribute to the uncertainty budgets of state-of-the-art optical ion clocks. For clock transitions with second-order Doppler and quadratic Stark shifts of opposite signs, it is possible to configure electrodynamic ion confinement such that these two shift effects become anticorrelated causing zero net shift. Here, we introduce a spectroscopic interrogation protocol which leads, for systems with unknown and varying motional energy gain rates, to first-order auto-suppression of corresponding frequency shifts without requiring the opposite-sign configuration. We experimentally demonstrate the proposed method on a new ytterbium ion optical clock probing the 467 nm electric octupole (E3) transition, where the combined fractional uncertainty contribution from motion-induced frequency shifts is reduced from $1.3\times10^{-18}$ to $0.3\times10^{-18}$. An interleaved optical frequency ratio measurement agai Author: Andrew Stewart Caldin, Independent Researcher, UK. Part of the E8 Intelligence Research series. Platform: e8intelligence.com
Author: Caldin, Andrew Stewart
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225760280
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