Signals from distant stars connect optical atomic clocks across Earth
for the first time
Transportable radio telescopes could provide global high-precision
comparisons of the best atomic clocks.

Date:
October 8, 2020
Source:
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology
(NICT)
Summary:
Using radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have
connected optical atomic clocks on different continents.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Using radio telescopes observing distant stars, scientists have connected optical atomic clocks on different continents. The results were published
in the scientific journal Nature Physics by an international collaboration between 33 astronomers and clock experts at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, Japan), the Istituto
Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM, Italy), the Istituto Nazionale
di Astrofisica (INAF, Italy), and the Bureau International des Poids et
Mesures (BIPM, France).


==========================================================================
The BIPM in Se`vres near Paris routinely calculates the international
time recommended for civil use (UTC, Coordinated Universal Time) from
the comparison of atomic clocks via satellite communications. However,
the satellite connections that are essential to maintaining a synchronized global time have not kept up with the development of new atomic clocks:
optical clocks that use lasers interacting with ultracold atoms to give
a very refined ticking. "To take the full benefit of optical clocks in
UTC, it is important to improve worldwide clock comparison methods." said Ge'rard Petit, physicist at the Time Department at BIPM.

In this new research, highly-energetic extragalactic radio sources
replace satellites as the source of reference signals. The group of
SEKIDO Mamoru at NICT designed two special radio telescopes, one deployed
in Japan and the other in Italy, to realize the connection using the
technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). These telescopes
are capable of observations over a large bandwidth, while antenna dishes
of just 2.4 meter diameter keep them transportable. "We want to show
that broadband VLBI has potential to be a powerful tool not only for
geodesy and astronomy, but also for metrology." commented SEKIDO. To
reach the required sensitivity, the small antennas worked in tandem with
a larger 34 m radio telescope in Kashima, Japan during the measurements
taken from October 14 2018 to February 14 2019. For the Kashima radio telescope, these were among the last observations before the telescope
was irreparably damaged by typhoon Faxai in September 2019.

The goal of the collaboration was to connect two optical clocks in
Italy and Japan, separated by a baseline distance of 8700 km. These
clocks load hundreds of ultra-cold atoms in an optical lattice, an
atomic trap engineered with laser light. The clocks use different atomic species: ytterbium for the clock at INRIM and strontium at NICT. Both are candidates for a future redefinition of the second in the International
System of Units (SI). "Today, the new generation of optical clocks is
pushing to review the definition of the second.

The road to a redefinition must face the challenge of comparing clocks globally, at the intercontinental scale, with better performances
than today," said Davide Calonico, head of the "Quantum Metrology and Nanotechnology" division and coordinator of the research at INRIM.

The connection is possible by observing quasars billions of light-years
away: radio sources powered by black holes weighing millions of solar
masses, but so distant that they can be considered fixed points in
the sky. The telescopes aim at a different star every few minutes to
compensate for the effects of the atmosphere. "We observed the signal not
from satellites, but from cosmic radio sources," commented IDO Tetsuya, director of the "Space-Time Standards Laboratory" and coordinator of the research at NICT. "VLBI may allow us in Asia to access the UTC relying
on what we can prepare by ourselves." IDO added.

Antennas like the transportable ones used in these measurements can be installed directly at the laboratories developing optical clocks around
the world. According to SEKIDO, "a global optical clock network connected
by VLBI may be realized by collaboration between the international
communities of metrology and geodesy, just like the broadband VLBI network
of the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS) has already been established,"
while Petit commented: "waiting for long-distance optical links, this
research shows that there is still to gain from radio links, where
VLBI with transportable antennas can complement the Global Navigation
Satellite Systems and telecommunication satellites." Besides improving international timekeeping, such an infrastructure also opens new ways to
study fundamental physics and general relativity, to explore variations
of Earth's gravitational field, or even the variation of fundamental
constants underlying physics. Federico Perini, coordinator of the
research at INAF, commented "We are proud to have been part of this collaboration helping to achieve such a big step forward in developing a technique which, using the most distant radio sources in the Universe,
makes possible the measurement of the frequencies generated by two of
the most accurate clocks here on the Earth." Calonico concludes "Our
comparison using VLBI gives a new perspective to improve and investigate
new methods for clock comparisons, also looking at the contamination
between different disciplines."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by National_Institute_of_Information_and_Communications
Technology_(NICT). Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Marco Pizzocaro, Mamoru Sekido, Kazuhiro Takefuji, Hideki Ujihara,
Hidekazu Hachisu, Nils Nemitz, Masanori Tsutsumi, Tetsuro Kondo,
Eiji Kawai, Ryuichi Ichikawa, Kunitaka Namba, Yoshihiro Okamoto,
Rumi Takahashi, Junichi Komuro, Cecilia Clivati, Filippo Bregolin,
Piero Barbieri, Alberto Mura, Elena Cantoni, Giancarlo Cerretto,
Filippo Levi, Giuseppe Maccaferri, Mauro Roma, Claudio Bortolotti,
Monia Negusini, Roberto Ricci, Giampaolo Zacchiroli, Juri Roda,
Julia Leute, Ge'rard Petit, Federico Perini, Davide Calonico,
Tetsuya Ido. Intercontinental comparison of optical atomic clocks
through very long baseline interferometry. Nature Physics, 2020;
DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01038-6 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201008124432.htm

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