Ultra-cold strontium atoms in a high finesse optical micro-cavity

The advent of alkaline-earth-like atoms with ultranarrow optical transitions has opened new avenues both in the fundamental study of quantum gases and for the development of state-of-the-art atomic sensors. In recent years, optical clocks based on Sr or Yb have reached unprecedented stability and accuracy at the 10$^{\mathrm{-18\thinspace }}$level. However, to date, such clocks are ultimately limited by the quantum projection noise due to the absence of correlations between the different atoms. The implementation of quantum metrology schemes using many-body correlated atomic states allows to go around this limitation. A promising path to quantum metrology with neutral atoms is the generation of correlated states using cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) methods. In this direction, we present a compact and efficient cQED experiment combining ultracold strontium atoms and high finesse optical micro-cavities.