HORACE: atomic clock with cooled atoms in a cell

Author

Guillot, Emmanuel ; Pottie, Paul-Eric ; Valentin, Constance ; Petit, Pierre ; Dimarcq, Noel

Author_Institution

Lab. de l´´Horloge Atom., Univ. de Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

Volume

1

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

81

Abstract

Our aim is to use cold atoms not for reducing instability or inaccuracy in the range of 10^-16 or better, but to use them for reducing the size of atomic clocks. The key idea of HORACE is to fold in a microwave cavity every zone of the atomic resonator of a standard clock: zones of cooling and atomic preparation, zone of interrogation and zone of detection. Then the cell of HORACE has to be a microwave cavity as well as an optical cavity. Thus cooling of cesium atoms can only be obtained by isotropic cooling light generated inside it. In this paper, we first expose the main features of HORACE and two different configurations. Metrological aspects as well as the way the atoms would be efficiently cooled are then developed. A preliminary validation of HORACE is also demonstrated

Keywords

atomic clocks; cavity resonators; laser cooling; HORACE; atomic clock; atomic resonator; cooled atoms; cooling zone; detection zone; interrogation zone; isotropic cooling; microwave cavity; optical cavity; Atom optics; Atomic clocks; Cooling; Dielectric loss measurement; Dielectric materials; Frequency; Geometrical optics; Optical materials; Optical pumping; Optical resonators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frequency and Time Forum, 1999 and the IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium, 1999., Proceedings of the 1999 Joint Meeting of the European

Conference_Location

Besancon

ISSN

1075-6787

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5400-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FREQ.1999.840712

Filename

840712