“Adventures of a clockmaker: Keeping time, testing relativity, and engineering atom-light interactions”

Christian Sanner

Monday, February 10th at 4:00pm

Optical atomic clocks are incredibly precise timekeepers. They find applications in low-energy tests of fundamental physics, and quantum engineering their clockwork opens new avenues for next-generation quantum sensors. I will report on recent tests of relativity with ytterbium ion optical clocks that led to hundredfold improved spacetime anisotropy limits [1] and twentyfold improved limits for fractional temporal variations of the fine structure constant [2]. [Read more…]