A team from the University of Wisconsin–Madison has developed what is known as an optical lattice atomic clock that is the first example of a ‘multiplexed’ optical clock, where six separate clocks can exist in the same environment.
Its design allows the team to test ways to search for gravitational waves, attempt to detect dark matter, and discover new physics with clocks.
“Optical lattice clocks are already the best clocks in the world, and here we get this level of performance that no one has seen before,” said Shimon Kolkowitz, a UW–Madison physics professor and senior author of the study.
“We’re working to both improve their performance and to develop emerging applications that are enabled by this improved performance.”
Atomic clocks are so precise because they take advantage of a fundamental property of atoms: when an electron changes energy levels, it absorbs or emits light with a frequency that is identical for all atoms of a particular element...