An atomic clockwork using phase dependent energy shifts

Abstract

A frequency stabilized laser referenced to an unperturbed atomic two level system acts as the most accurate clock with femtosecond clock ticks. For any meaningful use, a Femtosecond Laser Frequency Comb (FLFC) is used to transfer the atomic clock accuracy to electronically countable nanosecond clock ticks. Here we propose an alternative clockwork based on the phenomenon that when an atomic system is slowly evolved in a cyclic path, the atomic energy levels gather some phase called the geometric phase. This geometric phase dependent energy shift has been used here to couple the two frequency regimes in a phase coherent manner. It has also been shown that such a technique can be implemented experimentally, bypassing the highly involved setup of a FLFC.