arXiv subjects

Hua Guan

Publications and source records attributed to Hua Guan.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Chiral quantum batteries

Exploiting quantum effects for energy storage, quantum batteries (QBs) offer compelling advantages over conventional ones in terms of superior energy density, ultrafast charging, and high conversion efficiency. However, their realization is hampered by decoherence, which causes incomplete charging, rapid self-discharging, and reduced extractable work. Here, we propose a QB architecture based on a chiral magnonic platform. It comprises two yttrium iron garnet (YIG) spheres, one serving as the charger and the other as the QB, coupled to a waveguide. The unique chiral coupling between magnons and the guided electromagnetic fields breaks inversion symmetry, inducing both nonreciprocal energy flow and coherent interference between the charger and QB. Their synergy endows our QB with a 34-fold increase in energy capacity and a 55-fold boost in extractable work compared to its achiral counterpart in an experimentally accessible regime. Our scheme harnesses the decoherence from the electromagnetic fields and turns its destruction into an asset, which enables the robustness and wireless-like remote charging features of the QB. Our analysis reveals that these extraordinary capabilities stem from quantum coherence. By establishing chirality as a useful quantum resource, our work paves a viable path toward the realization of QBs.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Theoretical calculations of isotope shifts in highly charged Ni$^{12+}$ ion

We present relativistic many-body perturbation theory plus configuration interaction (MBPT+CI) calculations of the lowest four excited states of Ni$^{12+}$, a promising candidate for highly charged ion (HCI) optical clocks. By combining the convergence behavior from multiple calculation models, we perform a detailed analysis of the electron-correlation effects and both the excitation energies and their uncertainties are obtained. Our computed energies for the first two excited states deviate from experimental values by less than $10~\mathrm{cm^{-1}}$, with relative uncertainties estimated below $0.2\%$. Building on the same computational procedure, we calculate the mass shift and field shift constants for the lowest four excited states of Ni$^{12+}$, and the resulting isotope shifts exhibit valence-correlation-induced relative uncertainties below the $1\%$ level. These results provide essential atomic-structure input for high-precision isotope shift spectroscopy in Ni$^{12+}$.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

A Liquid-Nitrogen-Cooled Ca+ Ion Optical Clock with a Systematic Uncertainty of 4.4E-19

We report a single-ion optical clock based on the 4S_1/2-3D_5/2 transition of the 40Ca+ ion, operated in a liquid nitrogen cryogenic environment,achieving a total systematic uncertainty of 4.4E-19. We employ a refined temperature evaluation scheme to reduce the frequency uncertainty due to blackbody radiation (BBR), and the 3D sideband cooling has been implemented to minimize the second-order Doppler shift. We have precisely determined the average Zeeman coefficient of the 40Ca+ clock transition to be 14.345(40) Hz/mT^2, thereby significantly reducing the quadratic Zeeman shift uncertainty. Moreover, the cryogenic environment enables the lowest reported heating rate due to ambient electric field noise in trapped-ion optical clocks.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

Direct Extraction of Nuclear Structure Information Using Precision Lithium-Ion Spectroscopy

Accurately describing nuclear interactions within atomic nuclei remains a challenge, which hinders our exploration of new physics beyond the Standard Model. However, these nuclear interactions can be characterized by nuclear parameters such as the Zemach radius and the electric quadrupole moment, which are reflected in atomic spectra. Our work has achieved high-precision measurements of lithium ion hyperfine splittings at the level of $10$~kHz, and directly extracted these important nuclear structure parameters. We observed significant discrepancies between our results and both nuclear theory and molecular spectra regarding the electric quadrupole moment. The result for $^7$Li deviated by $2.3σ$ from the currently recommended value, whereas the result for $^6$Li deviated by up to $6.2σ$ from the recommended value determined by molecular spectroscopy. These discrepancies motivated us to conduct independent calculations based on nuclear structure theory, which provided support for the results obtained from ion spectroscopy. Our results provide valuable information for characterizing nuclear forces, serve as sensitive benchmarks for testing nuclear structure theories, and enable critical comparisons with both electron-nuclear scattering and molecular spectroscopy.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2025

Coulomb Crystallization of Highly Charged Ni^12+ Ions in a Linear Paul Trap

Optical clocks have garnered widespread attention due to their unparalleled precision in time-frequency standards, geodetic measurements, and fundamental physics research. Among emerging developments, highly charged ion (HCI)-based optical clocks have attracted significant scientific interest owing to their exceptional resilience against electromagnetic perturbations and enhanced sensitivity to variations in the fine-structure constant ($α$). While the recent successful demonstration of an Ar$^{13+}$ optical clock has validated the feasibility of HCI-based systems, Ni$^{12+}$ -- featuring an ultranarrow clock transition linewidth -- stands out as a superior candidate for achieving HCI optical clocks with $10^{-19}$ level uncertainty and stability. In this work, we report the Coulomb crystallization of nickel highly charged ions (Ni-HCIs). Through a precision deceleration and sympathetic cooling protocol in a room-temperature Paul trap, high-energy Ni-HCI bunches were sympathetically cooled from megakelvin to the 100-millikelvin range using laser-cooled Be$^{+}$ ions. This work represents a pivotal step toward the realization of an optical clock based on the Ni$^{12+}$ ion.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2023

Precision Measurement of M1 Optical Clock Transition in Ni12+

Highly charged ions (HCIs) have drawn significant interest in quantum metrology and in search for new physics. Among these, Ni12+ is considered as one of the most promising candidates for the next generation of HCI optical clocks, due to its two E1-forbidden transitions M1 and E2, which occur in the visible spectral range. In this work, we used the Shanghai-Wuhan Electron Beam Ion Trap to perform a high-precision measurement of the M1 transition wavelength. Our approach involved an improved calibration scheme for the spectra, utilizing auxiliary Ar+ lines for calibration and correction. Our final measured result of the M1 transition wavelength demonstrates a five-fold improvement in accuracy compared to our previous findings, reaching the sub-picometer level accuracy. In combination with our rigorous atomic-structure calculations to capture the electron correlations and relativistic effects, the quantum electrodynamic (QED) corrections were extracted. Moreover, comparing with an estimate of the one-electron QED contributions by using the GRASP2018 package, we found that the present experimental accuracy is high enough for testing the higher-order QED corrections for such a complex system with four electrons in the p subshell.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2023

Measurement of hyperfine structure and the Zemach radius in $\rm^6Li^+$ using optical Ramsey technique

We investigate the $2\,^3\!S_1$--$2\,^3\!P_J$ ($J = 0, 1, 2$) transitions in $\rm^6Li^+$ using the optical Ramsey technique and achieve the most precise values of the hyperfine splittings of the $2\,^3\!S_1$ and $2\,^3\!P_J$ states, with smallest uncertainty of about 10~kHz. The present results reduce the uncertainties of previous experiments by a factor of 5 for the $2\,^3\!S_1$ state and a factor of 50 for the $2\,^3\!P_J$ states, and are in better agreement with theoretical values. Combining our measured hyperfine intervals of the $2\,^3\!S_1$ state with the latest quantum electrodynamic (QED) calculations, the improved Zemach radius of the $\rm^6Li$ nucleus is determined to be 2.44(2)~fm, with the uncertainty entirely due to the uncalculated QED effects of order $mα^7$. The result is in sharp disagreement with the value 3.71(16) fm determined from simple models of the nuclear charge and magnetization distribution. We call for a more definitive nuclear physics value of the $\rm^6Li$ Zemach radius.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2023

Towards a transportable Ca$^+$ optical clock with a systematic uncertainty of $4.8\times 10^{-18}$

We present a compact, long-term nearly continuous operation of a room-temperature Ca$^+$ optical clock setup towards a transportable clock, achieving an overall systematic uncertainty of $4.8\times 10^{-18}$ and an uptime rate of 97.8% over an 8-day period. The active liquid-cooling scheme is adopted, combined with the precise temperature measurement with 13 temperature sensors both inside and outside the vacuum chamber to ensure the accurate evaluation of the thermal environment for the optical clock. The environmental temperature uncertainty is evaluated as 293.31(0.4) K, corresponding to a blackbody radiation (BBR) frequency shift uncertainty of $4.6\times 10^{-18}$, which is reduced more than two times compared to our previous work. Through the frequency comparison between the room temperature Ca$^+$ optical clock and a cryogenic Ca$^+$ optical clock, the overall uncertainty of the clock comparison is $7.5\times 10^{-18}$, including a statistic uncertainty of $4.9\times 10^{-18}$ and a systematic uncertainty of $5.7\times 10^{-18}$. This work provides a set of feasible implementations for high-precision transportable ion optical clocks.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2023

Absolute frequency measurements with a robust, transportable ^{40}Ca^{+} optical clock

We constructed a transportable 40Ca+ optical clock (with an estimated minimum systematic shift uncertainty of 1.3*10^(-17) and a stability of 5*10^(-15)/sqrt{tau} ) that can operate outside the laboratory. We transported it from the Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan to the National Institute of Metrology, Beijing. The absolute frequency of the 729 nm clock transition was measured for up to 35 days by tracing its frequency to the second of International System of Units. Some improvements were implemented in the measurement process, such as the increased effective up-time of 91.3 % of the 40Ca+ optical clock over a 35-day-period, the reduced statistical uncertainty of the comparison between the optical clock and hydrogen maser, and the use of longer measurement times to reduce the uncertainty of the frequency traceability link. The absolute frequency measurement of the 40Ca+ optical clock yielded a value of 411042129776400.26 (13) Hz with an uncertainty of 3.2*10^(-16), which is reduced by a factor of 1.7 compared with our previous results. As a result of the increase in the operating rate of the optical clock, the accuracy of 35 days of absolute frequency measurement can be comparable to the best results of different institutions in the world based on different optical frequency measurements.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2022

Measurement of infrared magic wavelength for an all-optical trapping of $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ ion clock

For the first time, we experimentally determine the infrared magic wavelength for the $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ $4s\, ^{2}\!S_{1/2} \rightarrow 3d\,^{2}\!D_{5/2}$ electric quadrupole transition by observation of the light shift canceling in $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ optical clock. A "magic" magnetic field direction is chosen to make the magic wavelength insensitive to both the linear polarization purity and the polarization direction of the laser. The determined magic wavelength for this transition is 1056.37(9)~nm, which is not only in good agreement with theoretical predictions but also more precise by a factor of about 300. Using this measured magic wavelength we also derive the differential static polarizability to be $-44.32(32)$~a.u., which will be an important input for the evaluation of the blackbody radiation shift at room temperatures. Our work paves a way for all-optical-trapping of $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ optical clock.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2021

Highly charged Nd$^{9+}$ Ion: A potential candidate of $\upmu$Hz linewidth optical clocks for probing fundamental physics

An active optical clock based on highly charged Nd$^{9+}$ ion is proposed for the first time. The clock can offer ultra-narrow linewidth at the $\upmu$Hz-level which is more than two-order of magnitude below the currently recorded laser linewidth. Operating at 605(90) nm superradiation lasing transition between the $5p^2~4f$ ground state and one of the long-lived $5p~4f^2$ excited state, the proposed active clock is inherently immune against the cavity noise which provides high stability. The clock serves as a sensitive probe with high sensitivity to variation of the fine-structure constant with accuracies below 10$^{-19}$ level. Sophisticated relativistic many-body methods are employed to predict related atomic properties that have corroborated the above findings.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2021

A liquid nitrogen-cooled Ca^+ optical clock with systematic uncertainty of 3*10^-18

Here we present a liquid nitrogen-cooled Ca^+ optical clock with an overall systematic uncertainty of 3*10^-18. In contrast with the room-temperature Ca^+ optical clock that we have reported previously, the temperature of the blackbody radiation (BBR) shield in vacuum has been reduced to 82(5) K using liquid nitrogen. An ion trap with a lower heating rate and improved cooling lasers were also introduced. This allows cooling the ion temperature to the Doppler cooling limit during the clock operation, and the systematic uncertainty due to the ion's secular (thermal) motion is reduced to < 1*10^-18. The uncertainty due to the probe laser light shift and the servo error are also reduced to < 1*10^-19 and 4*10^-19 with the hyper-Ramsey method and the higher-order servo algorithm, respectively. By comparing the output frequency of the cryogenic clock to that of a room-temperature clock, the differential BBR shift between the two was measured with a fractional statistical uncertainty of 7*10^-18. The differential BBR shift was used to calculate the static differential polarizability, and it was found in excellent agreement with our previous measurement with a different method. This work suggests that the BBR shift of optical clocks can be well suppressed in a liquid nitrogen environment. This is advantageous because conventional liquid-helium cryogenic systems for optical clocks are more expensive and complicated. Moreover, the proposed system can be used to suppress the BBR shift significantly in other types of optical clocks such as Yb^+, Sr^+, Yb, Sr, etc.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2021

Probing Multiple Electric Dipole Forbidden Optical Transitions in Highly Charged Nickel Ions

Highly charged ions (HCIs) are promising candidates for the next generation of atomic clocks, owing to their tightly bound electron cloud, which significantly suppresses the common environmental disturbances to the quantum oscillator. Here we propose and pursue an experimental strategy that, while focusing on various HCIs of a single atomic element, keeps the number of candidate clock transitions as large as possible. Following this strategy, we identify four adjacent charge states of nickel HCIs that offer as many as six optical transitions. Experimentally, we demonstrated the essential capability of producing these ions in the low-energy compact Shanghai-Wuhan Electron Beam Ion Trap. We measured the wavelengths of four magnetic-dipole ($M$1) and one electric-quadrupole ($E$2) clock transitions with an accuracy of several ppm with a novel calibration method; two of these lines were observed and characterized for the first time in controlled laboratory settings. Compared to the earlier determinations, our measurements improved wavelength accuracy by an order of magnitude. Such measurements are crucial for constraining the range of laser wavelengths for finding the "needle in a haystack" narrow lines. In addition, we calculated frequencies and quality factors, evaluated sensitivity of these six transitions to the hypothetical variation of the electromagnetic fine structure constant $α$ needed for fundamental physics applications. We argue that all the six transitions in nickel HCIs offer intrinsic immunity to all common perturbations of quantum oscillators, and one of them has the projected fractional frequency uncertainty down to the remarkable level of 10$^{-19}$.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2020

Precision calculation of hyperfine structure and the Zemach radii of $^{6,7}$Li$^+$ ions

The hyperfine structures of the $2\,^3\!S_1$ states of the $^6$Li$^+$ and $^7$Li$^+$ ions are investigated theoretically to extract the Zemach radii of the $^6$Li and $^7$Li nuclei by comparing with precision measurements. The obtained Zemach radii are larger than the previous values of Puchalski and Pachucki [\href{https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.243001}{Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 111}, 243001 (2013)}] and disagree with them by about 1.5 and 2.2 standard deviations for $^6$Li and $^7$Li, respectively. Furthermore, our Zemach radius of $^6$Li differs significantly from the nuclear physics value, derived from the nuclear charge and magnetic radii [\href{https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.78.012513}{Phys. Rev. A {\bf 78}, 012513 (2008)}], by more than 6 sigma, indicating an anomalous nuclear structure for $^6$Li. The conclusion that the Zemach radius of $^7$Li is about 40\% larger than that of $^6$Li is confirmed. The obtained Zemach radii are used to calculate the hyperfine splittings of the $2\,^3\!P_J$ states of $^{6,7}$Li$^+$, where an order of magnitude improvement over the previous theory has been achieved for $^7$Li$^+$.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Observation of Edge Solitons in Photonic Graphene

Edge states emerge in diverse areas of science, offering new opportunities for the development of novel electronic or optoelectronic devices, sound and light propagation controls in acoustics and photonics. Previous experiments on edge states and exploration of topological phases in photonics were carried out mostly in linear regimes, but the current belief is that nonlinearity introduces new striking features into physics of edge states, lead-ing to the formation of edge solitons, optical isolation, and topological lasing, to name a few. Here we experimentally demonstrate edge solitons at the zigzag edge of a reconfigurable photonic graphene lattice created via the effect of electromagneti-cally induced transparency in an atomic vapor cell with controllable nonlinearity . To obtain edge solitons, Raman gain was introduced to compensate strong absorption experienced by the edge state during propagation. Our observations pave the way to ex-perimental exploration of topological photonics on nonlinear, reconfigurable platform.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

A low-energy compact Shanghai-Wuhan electron beam ion trap for extraction of highly charged ions

A low-energy, compact and superconducting electron beam ion trap (the Shanghai-Wuhan EBIT or SW-EBIT) for extraction of highly charged ions is presented. The magnetic field in the central drift tube of the SW-EBIT is approximately 0.21 T produced by a pair of high-temperature superconducting coils. The electron-beam energy of the SW-EBIT is in the range of 30-4000 eV, and the maximum electron-beam current is up to 9 mA. Acting as a source of highly charged ions, the ion-beam optics for extraction is integrated, including an ion extractor and an einzel lens. A Wien filter is then used to measure the charge-state distribution of the extracted ions. In this work, the tungsten ions below the charge state of 15 have been produced, extracted, and analyzed. The charge-state distributions and spectra in the range of 530-580 nm of tungsten ions have been measured simultaneously with the electron-beam energy of 279 eV and 300 eV, which preliminarily indicates that the 549.9 nm line comes from $W^{14+}$.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2015

Measurement of magic wavelengths for the 40Ca+ clock transition

We demonstrate experimentally the existence of magic wavelengths and determine the ratio of the oscillator strengths for a single trapped ion. For the first time, two magic wavelengths for the 40Ca+ clock-transition are measured simultaneously with high precision, giving Lamda|mj|=1/2 = 395.7992(7) nm and Lamda|mj|=3/2 = 395.7990(7) nm. By tuning a laser to an intermediate wavelength between two transitions (4s1/2-4p1/2 and 4s1/2-4p3/2) of 40Ca+, the sensitivity of the clock transition Stark shift to the oscillator strengths for the resonance transition has been greatly enhanced. With the measured magic wavelengths, we determine the ratio of the oscillator strengths to sub-0.5% accuracy. Our experimental method may be applied to measure magic wavelengths for other ion clock-transitions, and, promisingly, the measurement of these magic wavelengths paves the way to building lattice ion clocks.

physics.atom-ph↗