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An accurate optical lattice clock with 87Sr atoms

Rodolphe Le Targat·Xavier Baillard·Mathilde Fouché·Anders Brusch·Olivier Tcherbakoff·Giovanni D. Rovera·Pierre Lemonde
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Abstract

We report a frequency measurement of the 1S0-3P0 transition of 87Sr atoms in an optical lattice clock. The frequency is determined to be 429 228 004 229 879 (5) Hz with a fractional uncertainty that is comparable to state-of-the-art optical clocks with neutral atoms in free fall. Two previous measurements of this transition were found to disagree by about 2x10^{-13}, i.e. almost four times the combined error bar, instilling doubt on the potential of optical lattice clocks to perform at a high accuracy level. In perfect agreement with one of these two values, our measurement essentially dissipates this doubt.

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Rodolphe Le Targat, Xavier Baillard, Mathilde Fouché, Anders Brusch, Olivier Tcherbakoff, Giovanni D. Rovera, Pierre Lemonde. 2006-05-23. An accurate optical lattice clock with 87Sr atoms. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.97.130801

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