Resolving the gravitational redshift across a millimetre-scale atomic sample

Tobias Bothwell (), Colin J. Kennedy, Alexander Aeppli, Dhruv Kedar, John M. Robinson, Eric Oelker, Alexander Staron and Jun Ye ()
Additional contact information
Tobias Bothwell: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Colin J. Kennedy: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Alexander Aeppli: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Dhruv Kedar: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
John M. Robinson: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Eric Oelker: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Alexander Staron: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado
Jun Ye: JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Department of Physics, University of Colorado

Nature, 2022, vol. 602, issue 7897, 420-424

Abstract: Abstract Einstein’s theory of general relativity states that clocks at different gravitational potentials tick at different rates relative to lab coordinates—an effect known as the gravitational redshift1. As fundamental probes of space and time, atomic clocks have long served to test this prediction at distance scales from 30 centimetres to thousands of kilometres2–4. Ultimately, clocks will enable the study of the union of general relativity and quantum mechanics once they become sensitive to the finite wavefunction of quantum objects oscillating in curved space-time. Towards this regime, we measure a linear frequency gradient consistent with the gravitational redshift within a single millimetre-scale sample of ultracold strontium. Our result is enabled by improving the fractional frequency measurement uncertainty by more than a factor of 10, now reaching 7.6 × 10−21. This heralds a new regime of clock operation necessitating intra-sample corrections for gravitational perturbations.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04349-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:602:y:2022:i:7897:d:10.1038_s41586-021-04349-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04349-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().