Demonstration of the nearly continuous operation of an ${}^{171}$Yb optical lattice clock for half a year

Abstract

Optical lattice clocks surpass primary Cs microwave clocks in frequency stability and accuracy, and are promising candidates for a redefinition of the second in the International System of Units (SI). However, the robustness of optical lattice clocks has not yet reached a level comparable to that of Cs fountain clocks which contribute to International Atomic Time (TAI) by the nearly continuous operation. In this paper, we report the long-term operation of an ${}^{171}$Yb optical lattice clock with a coverage of 80.3% for half a year including uptimes of 93.9% for the first 24 days and 92.6% for the last 35 days. This enables a nearly dead-time-free frequency comparison of the optical lattice clock with TAI over months, which provides a link to the SI second with an uncertainty of low $10^{-16}$. By using this link, the absolute frequency of the ${}^1$S${}_0{-}^3$P${}_0$ clock transition of ${}^{171}$Yb is measured as 518 295 836 590 863.54(26) Hz with a fractional uncertainty of $5.0\times 10^{-16}$. This value is in agreement with the recommended frequency of ${}^{171}$Yb as a secondary representation of the second.

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Cited by in corpus (1)

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