Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have devised a new clock that is more accurate than the current atomic clock. The clock is based on a single atom and can also help lead to a new way to define mass, LiveScience reported.
According to LiveScience, the current atomic clocks were based on at least two particles, the atom's nucleus and an electron leaping between different levels of energy. However, lead study researcher Holger Müller wanted to create a simpler clock.
"We were interested in what the simplest clocks are to explore the question of what time is," Müller said. "If you say that, say, you can't measure time with less than two particles, does that mean that anything below two particles doesn't experience time at all?"
Müller and his team of researchers used a cesium atom and the theory that matter can be both a particle and a wave to create their newer improved simple clock, RedOrbit reported. In a statement released by Berkeley, Müller explained, "When you make a grandfather clock, there is a pendulum and a clockwork that counts the pendulum oscillations. So you need something that swings and a clockwork to make a clock. There was no way to make a clockwork for matter waves, because their oscillation frequency is 10 billion times higher than even the oscillations of visible light."
So, Müller realized that he could combine two well-known physics techniques to measure the oscillations thus created a clockwork, RedOrbit reported. The physicist used the theory of relativity (E=mc2), which resulted in the de Broglie's matter-wave hypothesis, as well as the phenomenon known as time dilation, LiveScience reported. Time dilation suggests that when objects move away from and back to a location, they undergo less elapsed time than objects that stayed put.
To recreate time dilation, Müller and his team used lasers on the cesium atoms. "We essentially split an atom into two halves, and had one stay where it is and the other go forward and come back," Müller explained. "A tiny, tiny bit less time elapsed for the half that moved, so it oscillated less."
According to LiveScience, each half of the atom made about 10 to the 25th oscillations, but that the moving half of the atom made nearly 100,000 fewer oscillations than its non-moving counterpart.
"Our clock is accurate to within 7 parts per billion," Müller said. "That's like measuring one second out of eight years, about as good as the very first cesium atomic clock about 60 years ago." However, according to LiveScience, the new simpler clock is not as accurate as the current atomic clocks, known as optical clocks.
Müller also hopes their discovery will prove that time can be used to measure mass. "Our clock and the current best Avogadro spheres would make one of the best realizations of the newly defined kilogram," he said. "Knowning the ticking rate of our clock is equivalent to knowing the mass of the particle, and once the mass of one atom is known, the masses of others can be related to it."
"It's good to have multiple ways of measuring mass-it provides a cross-check for consistency," Müller added.