Experimental efforts at NIST towards one-electron ions in circular Rydberg states

Abstract

Experimental effort is underway at NIST to enable tests of theory with one-electron ions synthesized in circular Rydberg states from captured bare nuclei. Problematic effects that limit the accuracy of predicted energy levels for low-lying states are vanishingly small for high-angular-momentum (high-L) states; in particular, the nuclear size correction for high-L states is completely negligible for any foreseeable improvement of measurement precision. As an initial step towards realizing such states, highly charged ions are extracted from the NIST electron beam ion trap (EBIT) and steered through the electrodes of a Penning trap. The goal is to capture bare nuclei in the Penning trap for experiments to make one-electron atoms in circular Rydberg states with dipole (E1) transitions in the optical domain accessible to a frequency comb.