Andrey I. Bondarev

Excited-state magnetic properties of carbon-like $\text{Ca}^{14+}$

Lukas J. Spieß, Shuying Chen [1], Alexander Wilzewski [1], Malte Wehrheim [1], Jan Gilles [1,2], Andrey Surzhykov [1,2], Erik Benkler [1], Melina Filzinger [1], Martin Steinel [1], Nils Huntemann [1], Charles Cheung [3], Sergey G. Porsev [3], Andrey I. Bondarev [4,5], Marianna S. Safronova [3,6], José R. Crespo López-Urrutia, Piet O. Schmidt [1,7]

Abstract

We measured the $g$-factor of the excited state $^3\text{P}_1$ in $\text{Ca}^{14+}$ ion to be $g = 1.499032(6)$ with a relative uncertainty of $4\times10^{-6}$. The magnetic field magnitude is derived from the Zeeman splitting of a $\text{Be}^+$ ion, co-trapped in the same linear Paul trap as the highly charged $\text{Ca}^{14+}$ ion. Furthermore, we experimentally determined the second-order Zeeman coefficient $C_2$ of the $^3\text{P}_0$ - $^3\text{P}_1$ clock transition. For the $m_J=0\rightarrow m_{J'}=0$ transition, we obtain $C_2 = 0.39\pm0.04\text{HzmT}^{-2}$, which is to our knowledge the smallest reported for any atomic transition to date. This confirms the predicted low sensitivity of highly charged ions to higher-order Zeeman effects, making them ideal candidates for high-precision optical clocks. Comparison of the experimental results with our state-of-the art electronic structure calculations shows good agreement, and demonstrates the significance of the frequency-dependent Breit contribution, negative energy states and QED effects on magnetic moments.