Direct Frequency Comb Spectroscopy using Quantum Logic

Unprecedented accuracies have recently been achieved in optical spectroscopy through progress in laser cooling, atomic state preparation and optical frequency metrology techniques over the past decades. As a result, tests of fundamental physics theories in table-top experiments have been realized using atomic species that were accessible with these techniques. In this proposal, we strive to perform optical spectroscopy on atomic and molecular species with interesting spectroscopic features that have resisted precision spectroscopy in the past due to the lack of suitable transitions for laser cooling, state preparation and detection. By combining direct optical frequency comb spectroscopy techniques with quantum logic methods developed for quantum computation with trapped ions, we plan to perform absolute frequency metrology and coherent control of previously inaccessible many-level atoms and molecules that are trapped and have been cooled to the internal and external ground state. The versatility of this approach will allow us to study many different atomic and molecular species with the goal of improving current limits on fundamental constants and their temporal variation. A possible extension of these ideas to neutral atoms will be studied in an experiment in which we explore coherent neutral atom/ion interactions. The implementation of a quantum gate between a neutral atom and an ion may not only allow us to perform quantum logic spectroscopy on neutral atoms, but also reveal new approaches to scalable quantum computation.

Unprecedented accuracies have recently been achieved in optical spectroscopy through progress in laser cooling, atomic state preparation and optical frequency metrology techniques over the past decades. As a result, tests of fundamental physics theories in table-top experiments have been realized using atomic species that were accessible with these techniques. In this proposal, we strive to perform optical spectroscopy on atomic and molecular species with interesting spectroscopic features that have resisted precision spectroscopy in the past due to the lack of suitable transitions for laser cooling, state preparation and detection. By combining direct optical frequency comb spectroscopy techniques with quantum logic methods developed for quantum computation with trapped ions, we plan to perform absolute frequency metrology and coherent control of previously inaccessible many-level atoms and molecules that are trapped and have been cooled to the internal and external ground state. The versatility of this approach will allow us to study many different atomic and molecular species with the goal of improving current limits on fundamental constants and their temporal variation. A possible extension of these ideas to neutral atoms will be studied in an experiment in which we explore coherent neutral atom/ion interactions. The implementation of a quantum gate between a neutral atom and an ion may not only allow us to perform quantum logic spectroscopy on neutral atoms, but also reveal new approaches to scalable quantum computation.