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A new kind of atomic clock is more precise than any yet built , with the power to mark off smoothly for a thousand fourth dimension the life-time of the macrocosm . In addition to being the best timer to date , the young so - called quantum gasoline clock might one day extend insights into new physics .
Researchers at JILA ( formerly also touch to as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics ) used a combination ofstrontium atomsand an array of laser beam to make a clock so accurate it might be able to valuate the interaction of graveness at smaller scale than ever before . In doing so , it might pour forth light on the nature of its relationship to other fundamental forces , a mystery that has stick physicists for decades .
To make this quantum gas atomic clock, researchers used multiple lasers to cool strontium atoms and trap them in a grid of light. Then, a blue laser beam excites the cube-shaped cloud of the atoms.
nuclear clocksmeasure fourth dimension by using the vibration of atoms like a very accurate metronome . Current atomic clocks are off by second over tens of billions of years . This unexampled looping stay on precise enough that it will be off by only 1 second over about 90 billion year . [ 5 of the Most Precise Clocks Ever Made ]
To get that kind of precision , the team chilled atomic number 38 atoms to keep them from run around and break into one another — something that can throw off their shaking . First , they make the particle with laser . When hit by the photons in the lasers , the atoms take in their muscularity and re - emitted a photon , losing kinetic energy and getting colder . But that did n’t cool them enough . So to get them even colder , the team relied on evaporative cooling , reserve some of the strontium molecule to evaporate and accept yet more energy . They were left with between 10,000 and 100,000 atom , at a temperature of only 10 to 60 billionths of a degree above absolute zero , or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit ( minus 273 degrees Celsius ) .
The dusty molecule were trapped by a 3D agreement of lasers . The shaft of light were pose up to interfere with each other . As they did so , they created region of broken and highpotential energy , called potential well . The wells act like stack eggs cartons , and each one holds a atomic number 38 atom .
The atoms got so frigid that they terminate interact with each other — unlike a normal gasolene , in which atom are running around willy-nilly and resile off their fellows , such chill atoms rest quite still . They then originate to bear in a way of life that is less like a gas and more like a solid , even though the length between them is much orotund than what ’s found in solid Sr . [ 8 Ways you may See Einstein ’s hypothesis of Relativity in Real Life ]
" From that stage of view , it ’s a very interesting material ; it now has properties as if it is a solid state , " task drawing card Jun Ye , a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology , severalise Live Science . ( JILA is jointly operated by the NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder . )
At this point , the clock was ready to begin keep fourth dimension : The researchers bump off the molecule with a optical maser , exciting one of the electrons orbiting the strontium ’s nucleus . Because electrons are governed by the law ofquantum mechanic , one ca n’t say what energy level the electron is in once it is excited , and can only say that it has a chance of being in one or another . To assess the negatron , after 10 minute , they fired another laser at the mote . That laser measure where the negatron is settle around the lens nucleus , as a photon from the laser gets re - emitted by the atom — and how many times it oscillated in that geological period ( the 10 seconds ) .
average this measurement over thousands of atoms is what gives thisatomic clockits preciseness , just as averaging the beat of thou of identical pendulums will give one a more precise idea of what the period of that pendulum should be .
Until now , atomic redstem storksbill had only single " string " of atoms as fight to a 3D grille , so they could not take as many measurements as this one did , Ye said .
" It ’s like comparing scout , " Ye articulate . " Using that analogy , the laser pulse on the molecule kick off a coherent vibration . Ten moment later we turn on the pulse again and ask the electron , ' Where are you ? ' " That measuring is averaged over thousands of atom .
Keeping electrons in that in - between state is difficult , Ye say , and that ’s another grounds the atoms require to be so moth-eaten , so that the electron do n’t unexpectedly touch anything else .
The clock can essentially assess seconds down to 1 part in trillion . This ability makes more than a really upright timer ; it might aid in searches for phenomena such as dark subject , Ye said . For good example , one could do up an experimentation in space using such an accurate timer to see if atoms behave otherwise from what schematic possibility predict .
The study is detail in the Oct. 6 publication of the journal Science .
in the first place write onLive Science .
