Evaluation of a ^{88}Sr^{+} Optical Clock with a Direct Measurement of the Blackbody Radiation Shift and Determination of the Clock Frequency.

We report on an evaluation of an optical clock that uses the ^{2}S_{1/2}→^{2}D_{5/2} transition of a single ^{88}Sr^{+} ion as the reference. In contrast to previous work, we estimate the effective temperature of the blackbody radiation that shifts the reference transition directly during operation from the corresponding frequency shift and the well-characterized sensitivity to thermal radiation. We measure the clock output frequency against an independent ^{171}Yb^{+} ion clock, based on the ^{2}S_{1/2}(F=0)→^{2}F_{7/2}(F=3) electric octupole (E3) transition, and determine the frequency ratio with a total fractional uncertainty of 2.

Improved Limits on the Coupling of Ultralight Bosonic Dark Matter to Photons from Optical Atomic Clock Comparisons.

We present improved constraints on the coupling of ultralight bosonic dark matter to photons based on long-term measurements of two optical frequency ratios. In these optical clock comparisons, we relate the frequency of the ^{2}S_{1/2}(F=0)↔^{2}F_{7/2}(F=3) electric-octupole (E3) transition in ^{171}Yb^{+} to that of the ^{2}S_{1/2}(F=0)↔^{2}D_{3/2}(F=2) electric-quadrupole (E2) transition of the same ion, and to that of the ^{1}S_{0}↔^{3}P_{0} transition in ^{87}Sr. Measurements of the first frequency ratio ν_{E3}/ν_{E2} are performed via interleaved interrogation of both transitions in a single ion.

Adaptively controlled fast production of defect-free beryllium ion crystals using pulsed laser ablation.

Trapped atomic ions find wide applications ranging from precision measurement to quantum information science and quantum computing. Beryllium ions are widely used due to the light mass and convenient atomic structure of beryllium; however, conventional ion loading from thermal ovens exerts undesirable gas loads for a prolonged duration. Here, we demonstrate a method to rapidly produce pure linear chains of beryllium ions with pulsed laser ablation, serving as a starting point for large-scale quantum information processing.