1303.6357 (T. Rosenband et al.)

Exponential scaling of clock stability with atom number    [PDF]

T. Rosenband, D. R. Leibrandt

In trapped-atom clocks, the primary source of decoherence is often the phase noise of the oscillator. For this case, we derive theoretical performance gains by combining several atomic ensembles. For example, M ensembles of N atoms can be combined with a variety of probe periods, to reduce the frequency variance to M 2^-M times that of standard Ramsey clocks. A similar exponential improvement is possible if the atomic phases of some of the ensembles evolve at reduced frequencies. These ensembles may be constructed from atoms or molecules with lower-frequency transitions, or generated by dynamical decoupling. The ensembles with reduced frequency or probe period are responsible only for counting the integer number of 2 pi phase wraps, and do not affect the clock's systematic errors. Quantum phase measurement with Gaussian initial states allows for smaller ensemble sizes than Ramsey spectroscopy.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6357