{"id":127644,"date":"2024-09-04T15:18:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T15:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/04\/a-nuclear-clock-prototype-hints-at-ultraprecise-timekeeping\/"},"modified":"2024-09-04T15:18:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T15:18:20","slug":"a-nuclear-clock-prototype-hints-at-ultraprecise-timekeeping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/04\/a-nuclear-clock-prototype-hints-at-ultraprecise-timekeeping\/","title":{"rendered":"A nuclear clock prototype hints at ultraprecise timekeeping\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div> \r\n<br><br><div data-component=\"video-embed\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\n\n\n\n<p>Scientific clockmakers have crafted a prototype of a nuclear clock, hinting at future possibilities for using atomic nuclei to perform precise measurements of time and make new tests of fundamental physics theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the definition of a \u201cclock\u201d is scientifically hazy, the prototype is not yet used to measure time. So it technically should be called a \u201cfrequency standard,\u201d physicist Jun Ye says. But the work brings scientists closer to a nuclear clock than ever before. \u201cFor the first time, all essential ingredients for a working nuclear clock are contained in this work,\u201d says Ye, of JILA in Boulder, Colo.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<aside class=\"sn-conversion rich-text rich-text--with-sidebar\">\n<style><![CDATA[\n.email-conversion {\n  border: 1px solid #ffcccb;\n  color: white;\n  margin-top: 50px;\n  background-image: url(\"\/wp-content\/themes\/sciencenews\/client\/src\/images\/cta-module@2x.jpg\");\n  padding: 20px;\n  clear: both;\n}\n\n]]><\/style>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"emailConversion\" class=\"wp-block-group email-conversion newsletter-signup__wrapper___sbuqh\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Science News headlines, in your inbox<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Headlines and summaries of the latest\u00a0Science News\u00a0articles, delivered to your email inbox every Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n\n\n<p>Whereas atomic clocks measure time based on electrons jumping between energy levels in atoms, nuclear clocks\u2019 timekeeping would depend on the energy levels of atomic nuclei. A certain frequency of laser light is needed for an atom or an atomic nucleus to make such a jump. The wiggling of that light\u2019s electromagnetic waves can be used to mark time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nuclear clocks would keep time using a variety of the element thorium, called thorium-229.\u00a0Most atomic nuclei make energy leaps that are too large to be triggered by a tabletop laser. But thorium-229 has two energy levels that are close enough to each other that the transition between those two levels could serve as a clock.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, researchers have\u00a0precisely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-024-07839-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">determined the frequency of the light<\/a>\u00a0needed to set off that jump.\u00a0It\u2019s 2,020,407,384,335 kilohertz,\u00a0Ye and colleagues report in the Sept. 5\u00a0<em>Nature.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Importantly, the measurement<em>\u00a0<\/em>has an uncertainty of 2 kilohertz. That\u2019s more than a million times the precision of the best previous measurement. And it\u2019s more than a billion times the precision to which that frequency was known just over a year ago, highlighting multiple back-to-back developments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The improvement hinged on a component called a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/new-ultrafast-laser-emits-pulses-light-30-billion-times-second\">frequency comb<\/a>\u00a0(<em>SN: 10\/5\/18<\/em>). A crucial component of many atomic clocks, a frequency comb creates an array of discrete frequencies of light. Using a frequency comb with thorium-229 has been a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/nuclear-clock-atomic-most-precise-time-physics\">major research goal<\/a>, for some scientists (<em>SN: 6\/4\/21<\/em>). In the new work, Ye and colleagues compared the nuclear clock transition with that of an atomic clock with a known frequency.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is something that will be important as a scientific application for tests of fundamental physics,\u201d says physicist Ekkehard Peik of the National Metrology Institute in Braunschweig, Germany, who was not involved with the new research.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the future, such comparisons could be used to search for strange physics effects, such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/units-measure-are-getting-fundamental-upgrade\">drifting of the values of fundamental constants<\/a>\u00a0(<em>SN: 11\/2\/16<\/em>). These are numbers that \u2014 as the name implies \u2014 are believed to be eternally unwavering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencenews.org\/article\/nuclear-clock-ultraprecise-timekeeping\">Source link <\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientific clockmakers have crafted a prototype of a nuclear clock, hinting at future possibilities for using atomic nuclei to perform precise measurements of time and make new tests of fundamental physics theories. While the definition of a \u201cclock\u201d is scientifically hazy, the prototype is not yet used to measure time. So it technically should be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencenews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/090324_ev_nuclear_clock_feat.jpg?fit=800%2C450&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[16911,4161,3101,6613,103113,103112],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127646,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127644\/revisions\/127646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}