Blackbody radiation shift in 87Rb frequency standard

TL;DR

This paper calculates the blackbody radiation shift in 87Rb atomic clocks using advanced relativistic methods, providing a more accurate value for the Stark coefficient to improve clock precision.

Contribution

The study introduces a highly accurate calculation of the BBR shift in 87Rb, significantly refining previous estimates with detailed evaluation of excited state contributions.

Findings

Predicted Stark coefficient: k_S=-1.240(4)×10^{-10} Hz/(V/m)^2

Three times more accurate than previous calculations

Enhanced understanding of BBR effects on atomic clocks

Abstract

The operation of atomic clocks is generally carried out at room temperature, whereas the definition of the second refers to the clock transition in an atom at absolute zero. This implies that the clock transition frequency should be corrected in practice for the effect of finite temperature of which the leading contributor is the blackbody radiation (BBR) shift. Experimental measurements of the BBR shifts are difficult. In this work, we have calculated the blackbody radiation shift of the ground-state hyperfine microwave transition in 87Rb using the relativistic all-order method and carried out detailed evaluation of the accuracy of our final value. Particular care is taken to accurately account for the contributions from highly-excited states. Our predicted value for the Stark coefficient, k_S=-1.240(4)\times 10^{-10}\text{Hz/(V/m)}^{2} is three times more accurate than the previous calculation [1].