Probing New Bosons and Nuclear Structure with Ytterbium Isotope Shifts

Abstract:

In this Letter, we present mass-ratio measurements on highly charged Yb42+ ions with a precision of 4 ×10−12 and isotope-shift measurements on Yb+ on the 2S1/2→2D5/2 and 2S1/2→2F7/2 transitions with a precision of 4 ×10−9 for the isotopes 168,170,172,174,176Yb. We present a new method that allows us to extract higher-order changes in the nuclear charge distribution along the Yb isotope chain, benchmarking ab initio nuclear structure calculations. Additionally, we perform a King plot analysis to set bounds on a fifth force in the keV/𝑐2 to MeV/𝑐2 range coupling to electrons and neutrons.

M. Door, C.-H. Yeh, M. Heinz, K. Blaum et al., „Probing New Bosons and Nuclear Structure
with Ytterbium Isotope Shifts“, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 063002 (2025).

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.063002

Related to Project B01