Exponential gain in clock precision using quantum correlated ticks

Abstract

Creating precise timing devices at ultra-short time scales is not just an important technological challenge, but confronts us with foundational questions about timekeeping's ultimate precision limits. Research on clocks has either focused on long-term stability using an oscillator stabilized by a level transition, limiting precision at short timescales, or on making individual stochastic ticks as precise as possible. Here, we prove the viability of a conceptually different avenue: the autonomous self-correction of consecutive ticks by quantum correlations. This provides a new paradigm that integrates the advantages and insights from quantum transport theory to operate clocks at ultra-short timescales. We fully solve a model of coupled quantum systems and show how the emergent Pauli exclusion principle correlates the clock at the quantum level yielding an exponential advantage in precision. We furthermore demonstrate through simulations with realistic imperfections that this remarkable gain in precision remains stable providing a roadmap for implementation with contemporary quantum technologies.