Investigation of collisional losses and decoherence in a 1-D optical lattice clock with 88Sr [Elektronische Ressource] / Joseph Sundar Raaj Vellore Winfred

Investigation of collisional lossesand decoherence in a 1-D optical88lattice clock with SrVon der Fakult¨at fur¨ Mathematik und Physikder Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universit¨at Hannoverzur Erlangung des Grades einesDOKTORS DER NATURWISSENSCHAFTENDr. rer. nat.-genehmigte DissertationvonM.Sc., Joseph Sundar Raaj Vellore Winfredgeboren am 23.04.1978 Chennai, Indien2010Referent: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang ErtmerKorreferent: Prof. Dr. Fritz RiehleTag der Promotion: 11 Mai 2010AbstractThe effects of inelastic collisions, decoherence and density dependent frequency88shift in a 1-D Sr optical lattice clock were investigated in this work. To study88these effects, the Sr atoms were first cooled down to ultra-cold temperatures andwere loaded into the optical lattice operated at “magic” wavelength. The forbidden1 3S → P clocktransitionwasenabledbyapplyingastatichomogeneousmagneticfield0 03 3that admixes the P state to the P state and excited with a narrow linewidth laser.1 0Different laser sources required for this study were setup during this thesis work. By3 1observingtheinelasticlossesinapuresampleof P atomsandinamixtureof S and0 03P atoms, the loss-rate coefficients and the corresponding inelastic scattering lengths03 3were determined. This study showed that the loss rate due to P + P collisions is an0 01 3order of magnitude higher compared to the loss rate due to S + P collisions.