Improved estimate of the collisional frequency shift in Al+ optical clocks

Abstract

Collisions between background gas particles and the trapped ion in an atomic clock can subtly shift the frequency of the clock transition. The uncertainty in the correction for this effect makes a significant contribution to the total systematic uncertainty budget of trapped-ion clocks. Using a nonperturbative analytic framework that was developed for this problem, we estimate the frequency shift in Al+ ion clocks due to collisions with helium and hydrogen. Our calculations significantly improve the uncertainties in the collisional shift coefficients and show that the collisional frequency shifts for Al+ are zero to within uncertainty.