A Quantum Many-Body Spin System in an Optical Lattice Clock

Abstract

Strongly Correlated Clocks Optical lattice clocks with alkaline earth atoms provide one of the most stable time-keeping systems. Such clocks, in general, exhibit shifts in their transition frequencies as a consequence of interactions between atoms. Can this sensitivity be used to explore the dynamics of strongly correlated quantum systems? Martin et al. (p. 632 ) used a 1-dimensional optical lattice clock to study quantum many-body effects. Whereas the clock shift itself could be modeled within the mean field approximation, quantities such as spin noise required a full many-body treatment. This system may be useful for the quantum simulation of exotic magnetism.