English

Optical clocks with accuracy validated at the 19th digit

Atomic Physics 2025-12-09 v1

Abstract

We report a comprehensive evaluation of all known sources of systematic uncertainty for two independent 176^{176}Lu+^+ single-ion optical references, finding total systematic uncertainty of 1.1×10191.1\times10^{-19} and 1.4×10191.4\times10^{-19} for the two individual systems and 9.6×10209.6\times10^{-20} for the difference. Through direct comparison via correlation spectroscopy, we demonstrate a relative frequency agreement of 2.4±(5.7)stat±(1.0)sys×1019-2.4\pm(5.7)_\mathrm{stat}\pm(1.0)_\mathrm{sys}\times10^{-19}, where `stat' and `sys' indicate the statistical and systematic uncertainty, respectively. The comparison uncertainty is statistically limited after approximately 200 hours of averaging with a measurement instability of 4.8×1016(τ/s)1/24.8\times10^{-16}(\tau/\mathrm{s})^{-1/2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.07346,
  title  = {Optical clocks with accuracy validated at the 19th digit},
  author = {K. J. Arnold and M. D. K. Lee and Zhao Qi and Qichen Qin and Zhang Zhao and N. Jayjong and M. D. Barrett},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.07346},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

25 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:14:31.507Z