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Cold-Atom Clocks on Earth and in Space

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Frequency Measurement and Control

Part of the book series: Topics in Applied Physics ((TAP,volume 79))

Abstract

We present recent progress on microwave clocks that make use of lasercooled atoms. With an ultra-stable cryogenic sapphire oscillator as interrogation oscillator, a cesium fountain operates at the quantum projection noise limit. With 6 × 105 detected atoms, the relative frequency stability is 4 × 10−14 τ −1/2, where τ is the integration time in seconds. This stability is comparable to that of hydrogen masers. At τ = 2 × 104 s, the measured stability reaches 6 × 10−16. A 87Rb fountain has also been constructed and the 87Rb ground-state hyperfine energy has been compared to the Cs primary standard with a relative accuracy of 2.5 × 10−15. The 87Rb collisional shift is found to be at least 30 times below that of cesium. We also describe a transportable cesium fountain, which will be used for frequency comparisons with an accuracy of 10−15 or below. Finally, we present the details of a space mission for a cesium standard which has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to fly on the International Space Station in 2003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Observatoire de Paris, BNM-LPTF, 61 Avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014, Paris, France

    Pierre Lemonde, Philippe Laurent, Giorgio Santarelli, Michel Abgrall, Yvan Sortais, Sébastien Bize, Christophe Nicolas, Shougang Zhang & André Clairon

  2. Laboratoire de l’horloge atomique, Bât. 221, Université Paris Sud, 91405, Orsay, France

    Noël Dimarcq & Pierre Petit

  3. Physics Department, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6907, WA, Australia

    Antony G. Mann, Andre N. Luiten & Sheng Chang

  4. Département de Physique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure, Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231, Paris, France

    Christophe Salomon

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  1. Pierre Lemonde
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  2. Philippe Laurent
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  3. Giorgio Santarelli
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  4. Michel Abgrall
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  5. Yvan Sortais
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  6. Sébastien Bize
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  7. Christophe Nicolas
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  8. Shougang Zhang
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  9. André Clairon
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  10. Noël Dimarcq
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  11. Pierre Petit
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  13. Andre N. Luiten
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  14. Sheng Chang
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  15. Christophe Salomon
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  1. Physics Department, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, 6907, WA, Australia

    Andre N. Luiten

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Lemonde, P. et al. (2001). Cold-Atom Clocks on Earth and in Space. In: Luiten, A.N. (eds) Frequency Measurement and Control. Topics in Applied Physics, vol 79. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44991-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44991-4_6

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