NuClock

08/10/2017

The yearly nuClock meeting took place in Heidelberg two weeks ago. With 33 participants, this was by far the largest nuClock meeting to date. A lot of new results and ideas were shared, making it an exciting three days!

06/03/2017

NuClock isn't the only project funded under the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme by the European Union. There are many other fascinating projects, and a playlist with informative videos from some of them was put together, check it out!

The videos featured here show the key achievements of projects funded under the Future & Emerging Technologies (FET) programme of the European Union. By prov...

27/02/2017

The Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München group who directly observed the isomer for the first time last year has continued their great work with the set-up to determine the lifetime of the isomer state in neutral thorium. The results were just published, see the links for more info!

20/02/2017

Building an optical clock based on the Th-229 nuclear transition is our ultimate goal. We like to claim that the nuclear clock will be very robust in operation, ideally suited for geodesy and space applications. In terms of robustness of optical clocks, there is now an experiment by one of the partners that sets a new standard. The PTB group of Christian Lisdat built, operated, and characterised a transportable optical clock. Such clocks are required to compare distant optical clocks where no suitable fiber link exists. Read the story on our website for more details:
http://www.nuclock.eu/2017/01/17/transportable-optical-clock-presented-ptb/

15/02/2017

Based on the two previous posts you might have guessed already how a nuclear clock would work. Instead of using the atom as the resonator of the clock, or more precisely the electrons in it, the nucleus would be used. As far as we know to date, thorium-229 is the only isotope with an energy level possibly low enough to excite accurately, and thus the only candidate for a nuclear clock. It would be better than an atomic clock because of two main advantages: it resonates or 'ticks' faster, and the electrons shield the nucleus from any outside disturbances, making it more accurate and more robust. Sadly, not much is known about thorium-229 isomer yet, or how exactly the nuclear clock would be build, which is why nuClock started!

, which already describes the mission of nuClock: the development of fundamentally new technologies associated with scientific clocks. What’s driving us is something very fundamental: we want to measure time as precisely as possible. We want to build the best clock in the world!

13/02/2017

The next important concept to explain is atomic clocks, as the nuclear clock we would like to build would work according to the same principle. This video explains it nicely, and also gives some of the reasons why we need such precise time keeping.

We take lots of things for granted in this world; GPS, the internet and of course particle accelerators (well, maybe not particle accelerators!). However, no...

11/02/2017

With the motto 'Better late than never' in mind, some important concepts from our project will be explained in a series of posts. To start with, here's a short explanation on what a nuclear isomer is.
A nucleus is at the center of an atom, surrounded by an electron cloud. It consists of 2 types of particles: protons with a positive electrical charge and neutrons without charge. When the nucleus has no 'excess' energy, it is said to be in its ground state. If somehow energy is added to the nucleus, it goes into a so called excited state. Often the nucleus will immediately emit the excess energy again and return to its ground state. In some cases however, the energy is stored for a relatively long time. These particular configurations with 'long-lived' excited states are called nuclear isomers.

15/12/2016

top ten – Lars von der Wense, Peter Thirolf for detecting an elusive nuclear-clock transition http://ow.ly/SbBM3072lr0

15/12/2016

End of the year, time for overview lists, and physics is not left out. Each year, the editors of “Physics World” elect ten experiments or publications that they consider to be the most important scientific breakthroughs of the past year. On third place this year: the direct detection of the the Th-229 isomer by the LMU Munich group! Congratulations to everyone involved!

Long-awaited direct detection of Einstein's gravitational waves tops our list of the 10 key breakthroughs in physics this year

05/10/2016

At the Ars Electronica Festival, the concept of the first piece of art in light of the FEAT cooperation was presented as well. It will be an installation that builds on earlier “navigating noise” artwork and is inspired by a joined TU WIEN / PTB experiment. This experiment in search of the isomer relies on detecting a faint signal on top of large background noise.

Navigating Noise is a poetic exploration of the means of orientation in space through sound and movement. It is an experimental sonic architecture through which…

02/10/2016

Last month, nuClock’s art project with Kerstin Ergenzinger made its first appearance at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz. Ars Electronica is the world’s largest and most influential exhibition of digital art. The motto of this year’s meeting was “RADICAL ATOMS and the alchemists of our time”, a picture-perfect setting for our work! Kerstin Ergenzinger presented her past & future work, and our coordinator Thorsten Schumm took part in a podium discussion on future plans of strengthening the arts/science collaboration in Europe.

Art, technology, society. Ars Electronica is an internationally unique plattform for digital art and media culture.