Trapped Ion Clocks – Relativistic Effects and Collective Dynamics

by Prof. Klemens Hammerer (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

Thursday 8 May 2025, 16:15 → 17:30 Europe/Berlin

ENC-D114 (ENC)

Optical atomic clocks have achieved record-breaking stability, with accuracies corresponding to a drift of less than one second over the age of the universe. Among the leading platforms realizing this performance are cold trapped ions, which offer exceptional quantum control and coherence. At this level of precision, new questions emerge at the intersection of quantum optics and relativistic physics. In this talk, I will present our recent work on relativistic and collective effects in trapped ion clocks. Relativistic corrections induce a coupling between the ions' internal clock states and their collective center-of-mass motion in the trap, a phenomenon that has recently been captured in a rigorous theoretical framework. I will discuss the implications for systematic uncertainties in atomic clocks and the experimental challenges in controlling, cooling, and probing the collective dynamics of Coulomb crystals.

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