Towards metrology with highly charged isomeric ions from antiproton annihilation

Abstract

We describe how the annihilation of antiprotons can be utilized to generate highly charged isomeric ions in an ion-trap setup. We identify optical transitions in the hyperfine splitting of Hydrogen-like atoms composed of an isomer and a single electron in the ground state. We identify promising candidates in the isomers of Y, Nb, Rh, In, and Sb, for which the hyperfine transition lies in the infrared and whose excited state level lifetime is in the hundreds of milliseconds, which is suitable for metrology applications.