A quantum network of clocks

By P. Komar, Eric Kessler, M. Bishof, Liang Jiang, Anders Søndberg Sørensen, Jieping Ye, Mikhail D. Lukin. Nature Physics, 2013

784 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The development of precise atomic clocks plays an increasingly important role in modern society. Shared timing information constitutes a key resource for navigation with a direct correspondence between timing accuracy and precision in applications such as the Global Positioning System. By combining precision metrology and quantum networks, we propose a quantum, cooperative protocol for operating a network of geographically remote optical atomic clocks. Using nonlocal entangled states, we demonstrate an optimal utilization of global resources, and show that such a network can be operated near the fundamental precision limit set by quantum theory. Furthermore, the internal structure of the network, combined with quantum communication techniques, guarantees security both from internal and external threats. Realization of such a global quantum network of clocks may allow construction of a real-time single international time scale (world clock) with unprecedented stability and accuracy. A proposed network of atomic clocks—using non-local entangled states—could achieve unprecedented stability and accuracy in time-keeping, as well as being secure against internal or external attack.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa4a30d0336b06bd7b93e7cc2d2cb63310a9fbe5

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

Gravitational wave detection with optical lattice atomic clocks (2016, background): “Synchronous clock comparisons will allow detection of GWs via the effective Doppler shift of the shared laser light.”
Open quantum systems with local and collective incoherent processes: Efficient numerical simulations using permutational invariance (2018, background): “[224] P.”
Coherent Conversion Between Microwave and Optical Photons—An Overview of Physical Implementations (2019, neutral): “[11] P.”
Autonomous quantum clocks: how thermodynamics limits our ability to measure time (2016, background): “While classical clocks running in parallel would not offer any fundamental improvement, one could consider quantum resources that feature coherence or entanglement [40,41].”
Quantum technology for military applications (2021, background): “2 Technical applications Quantum network will perform network clock synchronisation [71, 198] that is already a major topic in classical digital networks.”
Synchronization of Distant Optical Clocks at the Femtosecond Level (2015, neutral): “A physical network of optical time scales, derived from these clocks, could enable dramatic improvements in precision navigation and timing [5,11,12], phased sensor arrays, tests of special and general relativity [5,13–16], clock-based geodesy [5,17–19], and even future searches for dark matter [20]”
An Atomic-Array Optical Clock with Single-Atom Readout (2019, methodology): “In addition, AOCs offer an advanced toolset for generation and detection of entanglement to reach beyond standard quantum limit operation — either through cavities [16, 45] or Rydberg excitation [15] — and for implementing quantum clock networks [19].”
Micius quantum experiments in space (2022, background): “For instance, it can dramatically improve the precision of navigation and timing (Gill, 2011; Kómár et al., 2014; Ludlow et al., 2015), clockbased geodesy (Ludlow et al.”
Development of Quantum Interconnects (QuICs) for Next-Generation Information Technologies (2021, background): “[89] proposed a quantum network of clocks that enjoys boosted precision and security over conventional classical clock networks.”