Assistant Professor

Christian Sanner received his education from Heidelberg University in Germany. His research in atomic physics brought him to MIT, PTB (Germany’s National Metrology Institute), and JILA. In 2022 he joined the physics faculty at CSU Fort Collins.

Research program summary:

The research in my group is located at the intersection between three frontiers in experimental atomic physics: Optical precision spectroscopy, quantum simulation, and light-matter interfacing. Our experimental platform is a system of laser-cooled ytterbium ions which are optically interrogated on a highly forbidden electric octupole transition. We are developing novel quantum sensors for low-energy tests of fundamental physics and we want to explore new regimes of collective atom-photon coupling.

Selected recent publications:

C. Sanner, L. Sonderhouse, R. B. Hutson, L. Yan, W. R. Milner, and J. Ye.
Pauli blocking of atom-light scattering
Science 374, 979 (2021)

A. Cidrim, A. Pineiro Orioli, C. Sanner, R. B. Hutson, J. Ye, R. Bachelard, and A. M. Rey.
Dipole-dipole frequency shifts in multilevel atoms
Physical Review Letters 127, 013401 (2021)

R. Lange, N. Huntemann, J. M. Rahm, C. Sanner, H. Shao, B. Lipphardt, C. Tamm, S. Weyers, E. Peik.
Improved limits for violations of local position invariance from atomic clock comparisons
Physical Review Letters 126, 011102 (2021)

L. Sonderhouse, C. Sanner, R. B. Hutson, A. Goban, T. Bilitewski, L. Yan, W. R. Milner, A. M. Rey, J. Ye.
Thermodynamics of a deeply degenerate SU(N)-symmetric Fermi gas
Nature Physics 16, 1216 (2020)

R. B. Hutson, A. Goban, G. E. Marti, L. Sonderhouse, C. Sanner, J. Ye.
Engineering Quantum States of Matter for Atomic Clocks in Shallow Optical Lattices
Physical Review Letters 123, 123401 (2019)

C. Sanner, N. Huntemann, R. Lange, C. Tamm, E. Peik, M. S. Safronova, S. G. Porsev.
Optical clock comparison for Lorentz symmetry testing
Nature 567, 204-208 (2019)

M. S. Safronova, S. G. Porsev, C. Sanner, J. Ye.
Two Clock Transitions in Neutral Yb for the Highest Sensitivity to Variations of the Fine Structure Constant
Physical Review Letters 120, 173001 (2018)

C. Sanner, N. Huntemann, R. Lange, C. Tamm, E. Peik.
Autobalanced Ramsey Spectroscopy
Physical Review Letters 120, 053602 (2018)

N. Huntemann, C. Sanner, B. Lipphardt, C. Tamm, and E. Peik.
Single-Ion Atomic Clock with 3e-18 Systematic Uncertainty
Physical Review Letters 116, 063001 (2016)