David Lucas

Abstract:

The 1s-2s energy interval in the muonium (μ+e-) atom has been measured by Doppler-free two-photon laser spectroscopy. A value of 2 455 528 941.0(9.8) MHz has been obtained in good agreement with quantum electrodynamics (QED). The muon-electron mass ratio can be extracted and is found to be 296.768 38(17). The measurement may also be interpreted as a determination of the muon-electron charge ratio as - 1 - 1.1(2.1)·10-9. Corresponding measurements in deuterium using the same experimental setup confirmed the validity of the applied analysis procedure.

Abstract:

A linear ion trap apparatus was used to measure the lifetime of the D5/2 level in 40Ca+ by quantum jump measurements on a single trapped ion. Compared to previous measurements, more precise and significantly larger results were obtained. Overall, the apparatus provided a precise test of ab initio atomic structure calculations.

Abstract:

We report a precise search for correlation effects in linear chains of 2 and 3 trapped Ca+ ions. Unexplained correlations in photon emission times within a linear chain of trapped ions have been reported, which, if genuine, cast doubt on the potential of an ion trap to realize quantum information processing. We observe quantum jumps from the met astable 3d2 D5/2 level for several hours, searching for correlations between the decay times of the different ions. We find no evidence for correlations: the number of quantum jumps with separations of less than 10 ms is consistent with statistics to within errors of 0.05%; the lifetime of the metastable level derived from the data is consistent with that derived from independent single-ion data at the level of the experimental errors (1%); and no rank correlations between the decay times were found with sensitivity to rank correlation coefficients at the level of |R| = 0.024.