[ad_1]
Two new atomic clocks have set "unprecedented" performance records in terms of stability and accuracy, new research has revealed.
The researchers say the record results could help improve the indication of the time and navigation.
Physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States said the two clocks would also facilitate research on gravity, the primitive universe and even dark matter.
The experimental devices each trap a thousand atoms of the ytterbium chemical element in grids consisting of laser beams.
Inside these optical networks, atoms are said to "stain" by vibrating between two levels of energy.
In a research published in the journal Nature, NIST physicists compared the two independent clocks and achieved record performance in the areas of systematic uncertainty, stability, and reproducibility.
Systematic uncertainty measures how much a clock represents natural vibrations, or frequency, of atoms.
The researchers found that each clock corresponded to the natural frequency with a margin of error of one billionth of a billionth.
The stability of the clock, the amount the frequency of which varied over the course of a day, was also recorded at a low level.
The reproducibility of the results and the proximity between the two clocks showed a difference of less than a billionth of a billionth.
"Systematic uncertainty, stability and reproducibility can be viewed as the" royal flush "of these clocks' performance," said project leader Andrew Ludlow.
"The agreement of the two clocks at this unprecedented level, which we call reproducibility, is perhaps the most important result because it essentially requires and corroborates the other two results."
Mr. Ludlow said that the total error of the clocks was less than the ability of scientists to take into account the effect of gravity over time.
"We believe that clocks like these are used in the world or in the world, and their relative performance would be limited for the first time by the effects of earth gravitation," he said.
According to the theory of relativity of the famous physicist Albert Einstein, time passes more slowly in the places where the gravity is the strongest.
Researchers claim that the degrading timing of NIST's super-sensitive clocks will therefore be useful for accurate mapping of space-time gravitational distortion.
They also argue that it will help detect signals from the primitive universe, such as the mysterious dark matter.
Ytterbium clocks could also improve the ability to measure the shape of the Earth through sea level readings.
Devices on different continents could solve geodetic measurements to within one centimeter.
The ytterbium atom is among the potential candidates for the future redefinition of the second, the international time unit, in terms of optical frequencies.
The new NIST clock recordings show an accuracy 100 times greater than that of clocks compared to the current standard, the cesium atom, which vibrates at lower microwave frequencies.
Researchers are currently building a portable ytterbium network clock that could be transported to other laboratories around the world for clock comparison purposes.
Source link
