High-accuracy measurement of the ground-state hyperfine splitting in an atomic fountain

Issue		EPL Volume 45, Number 5, March 1999


Page(s)		558 - 564
Section		General
DOI		10.1209/epl/i1999-00203-9

DOI: 10.1209/epl/i1999-00203-9

Europhys. Lett, 45 (5), pp. 558-564 (1999)

High-accuracy measurement of the $^{87}\rm Rb$ ground-state
hyperfine splitting in an atomic fountain

S. Bize ¹, Y. Sortais ¹, M. S. Santos ², C. Mandache ³
A. Clairon ¹ and C. Salomon ⁴

¹ BNM-LPTF, Observatoire de Paris - 61 Av. Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris, France
² Instituto de Física de São Carlos-USP, Departamento de Fisica e Ciência dos Materiais
P.O. Box 369, Av. Dr. Carlos Botelho, 1465, São Carlos, SP, 13560-970, Brazil
³ Institutul National de Fizica Laserilor, Plasmei si Radiatiei
P.O. Box-MG36, Bucuresti, Magurele, Romania
⁴ Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Supérieure
24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

(received 4 November 1998; accepted in final form 21 December 1998)

PACS. 06.30Ft - Time and frequency.
PACS. 32.80Pj - Optical cooling of atoms; trapping.
PACS. 32.10Fn - Fine and hyperfine structure.

Abstract:

We describe the operation of a laser-cooled rubidium ⁸⁷Rb frequency standard. We present a new measurement of the ⁸⁷Rb hyperfine frequency with a $1.3\times10^{-14}$ relative accuracy, by comparison with a Cs fountain primary standard. The measured ⁸⁷Rb ground-state hyperfine splitting is $\nu_{^{87}\mbox{\scriptsize Rb}}=6~834~682~610.90429(9)$ Hz. This value differs from previously published values (see ESSEN L., HOPE E. G. AND SUTCLIFFE D., Nature, 189 1961 298; PENSELIN S., MORAN T., COHEN W. AND WINKLER G., Phys. Rev., 127 1962 524; ARDITI M. AND CEREZ P., IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., IM-21 1972 391) by about $2\mbox{-}3$ Hz and is 10⁴ times more accurate. Because of the low collisional shift in ⁸⁷Rb, future improvements may lead to a stability of $1 \times 10^{-14}\tau^{-1/2}$ and a relative accuracy in the 10^-17 range.

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