Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE
Juggling atomic clocks
Chad Fertig, Kurt Gibble
Abstract
We demonstrate a prototype of a laser-cooled 87Rb fountain clock and measure the frequency shift due to cold collisions. The shift is 30 times smaller than that in a laser-cooled Cs clock. We observe a density dependent pulling by the microwave cavity and use it to cancel the collision shift. We have also demonstrated a juggling atomic fountain to study cold collisions and we discuss the importance ofjuggling for future fountain clocks.