How world's most precise clock could transform fundamental physics

A person on top of a mountain ages a little faster than someone at sea level because of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

The theory that clocks tick at different rates when separated by fractions of a millimeter has been confirmed by US scientists.

Jun Ye, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, told Agence France-Presse that their new clock was the most precise ever built and could pave the way for new discoveries in quantum mechanics.

The engineering advances that enabled them to build a device 50 times more precise than the best atomic clock were described in the journal Nature.

It wasn't until the invention of atomic clocks that scientists could prove Einstein's theory.

In 1976, an onboard clock was faster than an equivalent on Earth by one second every 73 years, thanks to the Gravity Probe A, which flew 6,000 miles above Earth.

Since then, the clock has become more precise and can detect the effects of relativity.

NIST scientists observed time moving at different rates when their clock was moved 33 centimeters higher.

Theory of everything.

The key breakthrough was using optical lattices to trap atoms in orderly arrangements. This will stop the atoms from falling due to gravity.

100,000 strontium atoms are stacked on top of each other like a stack of pancakes in Ye's new clock.

The clock is so precise that when the scientists divided the stack into two, they could see differences in time in the top and bottom half.

clocks act as sensors at this level.

Ye said that space and time are connected.

The difference between solid rock and lava could be seen by a clock spread out over a volcanically active region.

Global warming is causing glaciers to melt and oceans to rise.

Future clocks could bring in a completely new realm of physics.

The current clock can detect time differences across 200 microns, but if it were to be brought down to 20 microns, it could begin to probe the quantum world.

It is incompatible with quantum mechanics, which deals with the very small, because it explains how large objects behave.

Every particle is a wave and can occupy multiple places at the same time, according to quantum theory. It is not clear how an object in two places at the same time would distort space-time.

The intersection of the two fields would bring physics closer to a theory of everything that explains the physical phenomena of the universe.

More information: Tobias Bothwell, Resolving the gravitational redshift in a millimetre-scale atomic sample, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04349-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04349-7

There are differential clock comparisons with a multiplexed optical lattice clock. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04344-y

Journal information: Nature

There will be a new year in 2022.

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