Deployment of a transportable Yb optical lattice clock
Tobias Bothwell, Wesley Brand, Robert Fasano, Thomas Akin, J. D. Whalen, Tanner Grogan, Yun-Jhih Chen, Marco Pomponio, Takuma Nakamura, Benjamin Rauf, Ignacio Baldoni, Michele Giunta, Ronald Holzwarth, Craig Nelson, Archita Hati, Franklyn Quinlan, Richard W. Fox, Steven Peil, Andrew D. Ludlow
Abstract
We report on the first deployment of a ytterbium (Yb) transportable optical lattice clock (TOLC), commercially shipping the clock 3000 km from Boulder, Colorado, to Washington DC. The system, composed of a rigidly mounted optical reference cavity, an atomic physics package, and an optical frequency comb, fully realizes an independent frequency standard for comparisons in the optical and microwave domains. The shipped Yb TOLC was fully operational within 2 days of arrival, enabling frequency comparison with a rubidium (Rb) fountain at the United States Naval Observatory (USNO). To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first deployment of a fully independent TOLC, including the frequency comb, coherently uniting the optical stability of the Yb TOLC to the microwave output of the Rb fountain.