Optical atomic clocks based on trapped ions suffer from systematic frequency shifts of the clock transition due to interaction with blackbody radiation from the environment. These shifts can be compensated if the blackbody radiation spectrum and the differential dynamic polarizability is known to a sufficient precision. Here, we present a new measurement scheme, based on quantum logic that allows a direct transfer of precision for polarizability measurements from one species to the other. This measurement circumvents the necessity of calibrating laser power below the percent level, which is the limitation for state-of-the-art polarizability measurements in trapped ions. Furthermore, the presented technique allows one to reference the polarizability transfer to hydrogenlike ions for which the polarizability can be calculated with high precision.

• Received 15 August 2023
• Revised 9 October 2023
• Accepted 10 January 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.083202

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society