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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Improvement of the frequency stability below the dick limit with a continuous atomic fountain clock
    The frequency instability of a shot-noise limited atomic fountain clock is inversely proportional to its signal-to- noise ratio. Therefore, increasing the atomic flux is a direct way to improve the stability. Nevertheless, in pulsed operation, the local oscillator noise limits the performance via the Dick effect. We experimentally demonstrate here that a continuous atomic fountain allows one to overcome this limitation. In this work, we take advantage of two-laser optical pumping on a cold cesium beam to increase the useful fountain flux and, thus, to reduce the frequency instability below the Dick limit. A stabil- ity of 6 • 10-14 τ-1/2 has been measured with the continuous cesium fountain FOCS-2.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Fourier analysis of Ramsey fringes observed in a continuous atomic fountain for in situ magnetometry
    Ramsey fringes observed in an atomic fountain are formed by the superposition of the individual atomic signals. Due to the atomic beam residual temperature, the atoms have slightly different trajectories and thus are exposed to a different average magnetic field, and a velocity-dependent Ramsey interaction time. As a consequence, both the velocity distribution and magnetic field profile are imprinted in the Ramsey fringes observed on Zeeman sensitive microwave transitions. In this work, we perform a Fourier analysis of the measured Ramsey signals to retrieve both the time-averaged magnetic field associated with different trajectories and the velocity distribution of the atomic beam. We use this information to reconstruct Ramsey fringes and establish an analytical expression for the value of the microwave frequency for which individual Ramsey fringes add most constructively and are thus visible in the microwave spectrum.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Combined quantum state preparation and laser cooling of a continuous beam of cold atoms
    We use two-laser optical pumping on a continuous atomic fountain in order to prepare cold cesium atoms in the same quantum ground state. A first laser excites the F=4 ground state to pump the atoms toward F=3 while a second π -polarized laser excites the F=3 -> F'=3 transition of the D2 line to produce Zeeman pumping toward m=0. To avoid trap states, we implement the first laser in a 2D optical lattice geometry, thereby creating polarization gradients. This configuration has the advantage of simultaneously producing Sisyphus cooling when the optical lattice laser is tuned between the F=4 -> F'=4 and F=4 -> F'=5 transitions of the D2 line, which is important to remove the heat produced by optical pumping. Detuning the frequency of the second π-polarized laser reveals the action of a new mechanism improving both laser cooling and state preparation efficiency. A physical interpretation of this mechanism is discussed.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Measurement of the magnetic field profile in the atomic fountain clock FoCS-2 using Zeeman spectroscopy
    We report the evaluation of the second-order Zeeman shift in the continuous atomic fountain clock FoCS-2. Because of its continuous operation and geometrical constraints, the methods used in pulsed fountains are not applicable. We use here time-resolved Zeeman spectroscopy to probe the magnetic field profile in the clock. Pulses of ac magnetic excitation allow us to spatially resolve the Zeeman frequency and to evaluate the Zeeman shift with a relative uncertainty smaller than 5 × 10−16.