Polarizability measurements of the ground and metastable states of Sr, Yb, and Ba

We report progress towards 0.1{\%} measurements of the DC polarizabilities of strontium, ytterbium, and barium in the ground 1S0 and metastable 3P0 states. We use a Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer with an electric field gradient to perform these measurements. Since our beam splitters are species-independent nanogratings, we can eliminate many systematic errors by performing ratio measurements with respect to a better-known polarizability (e.g. $\alpha _{\mbox{Sr}} /\alpha _{\mbox{Li}} )$. These measurements will reduce uncertainty in optical clocks and provide new benchmark tests for atomic structure calculations.