Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks
Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks
We report vapor-cell magneto-optical trapping of Hg isotopes on the (1)S(0)-(3)P(1) intercombination transition. Six abundant isotopes, including four bosons and two fermions, were trapped. Hg is the heaviest nonradioactive atom trapped so far, which enables sensitive atomic searches for "new physics" beyond the standard model. We propose an accurate optical …