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Optical Transitions in Highly Charged Ions for Detection of Variations in the Fine-Structure Constant

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Fundamental Physics in Particle Traps

Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Modern Physics ((STMP,volume 256))

Abstract

In this review, we explore a class of optical transitions in highly charged ions that have very high sensitivity to variation of the fine-structure constant, \(\alpha \). An atomic clock based on such a transition could place strong limits on \(\alpha \)-variation, and could be sensitive enough to corroborate astronomical studies that suggest cosmological spatial variations in \(\alpha \). We discuss how to find the ions which have these optical transitions, the source of the high sensitivity to \(\alpha \)-variation, and some scaling laws that suggest that a highly charged ion clock could have better systematics than existing singly-ionized trapped ion clocks. Finally we give an overview of atomic spectra calculations as applied in highly charged ions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The variation of \(\alpha \) is unrelated to the well-known “running” of \(\alpha \) at high energies, rather, it is a variation of \(\alpha \) at zero-momentum transfer across space and/or time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    A. Ong, J. C. Berengut & V. V. Flambaum

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Correspondence to A. Ong .

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  1. Gesellschaft f. Schwerionenforschung Atomphysik, Darmstadt, Germany

    Wolfgang Quint

  2. Gesellschaft f. Schwerionenforschung Atomphysik, Darmstadt, Germany

    Manuel Vogel

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Ong, A., Berengut, J., Flambaum, V. (2014). Optical Transitions in Highly Charged Ions for Detection of Variations in the Fine-Structure Constant. In: Quint, W., Vogel, M. (eds) Fundamental Physics in Particle Traps. Springer Tracts in Modern Physics, vol 256. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45201-7_9

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