Compact CW cold beam cesium atomic clock

We present a novel cesium beam physics package, which uses optical techniques to combine the high signal-to-noise ratios achievable by optical pumping and beam brightening with the narrow linewidth allowed by a slow atomic beam. Our design can be realized in a compact, robust package suitable for space applications. Our approach differs from other laser-cooled clocks in that we use a cold-atom source that provides a continuous beam. We estimate the shot noise-limited stability that can be achieved with this physics package to be two to three orders of magnitude better than that of current compact cesium beam atomic clocks