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Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements

Quantum projection noise limited stability and blackbody radiation shift uncertainty of NRC's Sr+atomic clock

Bin Jian, P. Dubé, Alan A. Madej

Published Jul 1, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present the current status of the Sr+optical atomic ion clock at the National Research Council of Canada including the study of the quantum projection noise (QPN) limited stability and the progress on the evaluation of the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift uncertainty. The latest QPN limited stability of NRC's Sr+ clock is 3 × 10-15at 1 sec averaging time. The fractional evaluated accuracy of the Sr+ ion clock has reached 1.2 × 10-17and is now dominated by the BBR shift uncertainty, the improved evaluation of which is currently in progress.

DOI
10.1109/cpem.2016.7540548

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arXiv:1210.7272•Physical Review A•Jan 23, 2013•140 citations
We present the current status of the Sr+optical atomic ion clock at the National Research Council of Canada including the study of the quantum projection noise (QPN) limited stability and the progress on the evaluation of the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift uncertainty. The latest QPN limited stability of NRC's Sr+ clock is 3 × 10-15at 1 sec averaging time. The fractional evaluated accuracy of the Sr+ ion clock has reached 1.2 × 10-17and is now dominated by the BBR shift uncertainty, the improved evaluation of which is currently in progress.
The evaluated accuracy of a single trapped 88 Sr + ion clock referenced to the 5s 2 S 1/2 - 4d 2 D 5/2 transition at 445 THz at the National Research Council of Canada has reached 1.2 x 10 -17 over recent years. On the other hand, the stability of an atomic clock determines how long the signals from two similar clocks have to be compared to reach a given level of uncertainty. Here, we report on the improvement of the stability of NRC's 88 Sr + single ion clock by reducing the Allan deviation from 1 x 10 -14 to 3 x 10 -15 at 1 second averaging time. This is done by the implementation of a clear out laser that transfers the ion from the metastable state to the ground state at each cycle, followed by a state-preparation step that transfers the ion to the desired ground state magnetic sublevel of the probed transition.
The strontium ion clock developed at the National Research Council of Canada has reached an uncertainty level of 5 mHz in recent years. This low level of uncertainty was achieved in great part by using methods that harness specific properties of the clock transition that allow either a very high level of cancellation or a strong suppression of frequency shifts that would otherwise dominate the uncertainty budget. The shifts controlled by these methods are the electric quadrupole shift, the tensor Stark shifts, and the micromotion shifts. With these methods in place, the main limitation to the accuracy of the clock transition frequency is the uncertainty in the evaluation of blackbody radiation (BBR) field. In this paper, we review the methods used to control the shifts to the 5 mHz level and present our plans for the evaluation of the BBR field that is expected to reduce the total uncertainty to the mHz level.
We describe recent experimental progress with the JILA Sr optical frequency standard, which has a systematic uncertainty at the 10-16fractional frequency level, currently limited by frequency shifts due to atomic interactions and room temperature blackbody radiation (BBR). We will discuss systematic measurements of collisional shifts and provide a complete theory to understand these interaction effects at the 10-17level. We will also discuss plans to interrogate atoms inside a cryogenic shield region to eliminate BBR shifts. We will present our recent successful efforts in improving the laser stability with the aim for the JILA Sr standard to reach the standard quantum measurement limit and achieve record levels of stability. Finally, a second Sr optical lattice clock has been constructed at JILA, and we will discuss the results of intercomparison experiments between the two standards.
The fractional uncertainty of the 40Ca+ optical clock in our laboratory has been evaluated to be 2.2×10−17, but it is difficult to evaluate the statistical uncertainty of the output frequency at this level, limited by the frequency stability associated with the quantum projection noise (QPN). A reduction in the stability is required to shorten the averaging time for a certain statistical uncertainty level. To improve the stability, the Ramsey method is introduced in the locking process. To improve the reliability and continuity, we introduce the idea of using auxiliary Rabi probes to avoid fringe slips in the Ramsey interrogation and to automatically search for resonance. The stability of a single 40Ca+ ion frequency standard is improved from 6.3×10−15/τ to 2.5×10−15/τ, where τ is the averaging time in seconds, which is close to the QPN limit for an 80-ms-long Ramsey interrogation. We obtain a stability of 1.5×10−17 at an averaging time of 21 000 s and an uptime rate of 93.8% for a 34-h-long run. These methods can easily be applied to other ion or neutral atom optical clocks.
We evaluated the static and dynamic polarizabilities of the 5s21S05{s}^{2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{}^{1}{S}_{0}5s21S0​ and 5s5p3P0o5s5p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{}^{3}{P}_{0}^{o}5s5p3P0o​ states of Sr using the high-precision relativistic configuration interaction combined with the all-order method. Our calculation explains the discrepancy between the recent experimental $5{s}^{2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{}^{1}{S}_{0}\ensuremath{-}5s5p\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}{}^{3}{P}_{0}^{o}$ dc Stark shift measurement $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\alpha}=247.379(7)$ [Middelmann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 263004 (2012)] and the earlier theoretical result of 261(4) a.u. [Porsev and Derevianko, Phys. Rev. A 74, 020502(R) (2006)]. Our present value of 247.5 a.u. is in excellent agreement with the experimental result. We also evaluated the dynamic correction to the BBR shift with 1% uncertainty; $\ensuremath{-}0.1492(16)Hz.ThedynamiccorrectiontotheBBRshiftisunusuallylargeinthecaseofSr(70.1492(16) Hz. The dynamic correction to the BBR shift is unusually large in the case of Sr (70.1492(16)Hz.ThedynamiccorrectiontotheBBRshiftisunusuallylargeinthecaseofSr(7%$) and it enters significantly into the uncertainty budget of the Sr optical lattice clock. We suggest future experiments that could further reduce the present uncertainties.