Isotopic variation of parity violation in atomic ytterbium: Description of the measurement method and analysis of systematic effects

2019

We present a detailed description of experimental studies of the parity violation effect in an isotopic chain of atomic ytterbium (Yb), whose results were reported in a recent paper [Antypas et al., Nat. Phys. 15, 120 (2019)]. We discuss the principle of these measurements, made on the Yb $6{s}^{2} {}^{1}{S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5d6s ^{3}D_{1}$ optical transition at 408 nm, describe the experimental apparatus, and give a detailed account of our studies of systematic effects in the experiment. Our results offer a direct observation of the isotopic variation in the atomic parity violation effect, a variation which is in agreement with the prediction of the standard model. These measurem…