MRI: Acquisition of a Femtosecond Frequency Comb for Fundamental Precision Measurements

该项目包括获得飞秒频率梳系统和相关设备，这些设备将构成一个共享的实验设施，用于在加州大学伯克利分校进行原子、分子和光学（AMO）物理的精确基础测量。该设施将为伯克利的研究人员提供一组参考频率，这些频率在整个光谱中以最好的原子钟的精度而闻名，这是一个极其强大的工具，已被2005年诺贝尔物理学奖所认可。该设施使研究成为可能，包括测试自然基本“常数”的稳定性，探索标准模型和引力之外的物理的原子干涉测量法，用于量子信息处理和量子计算的捕获离子，通过该设施在所有用户之间共享的捕获离子频率标准，超冷分子是20世纪90年代超冷原子革命的自然延伸，通过梳内数百万个频率进行大规模并行数据通信。该项目的智力价值在于，它将使研究人员能够利用一个巨大的机会窗口，在探索领域的前沿科学方面，自半个多世纪前第一个原子钟出现以来，这个领域一直是发现的取之不尽的源泉。更广泛的影响将是，梳子设施将成为培养研究生、本科生和博士后学者的工具；促进国际合作；向K-12学生和公众推广，并促进跨学科联系，例如，AMO物理学与宇宙学，化学，核物理学和材料科学之间的联系。

The project involves acquisition of a femtosecond frequency-comb system and associated equipment that will constitute a shared experimental facility for precision fundamental measurements in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics at UC Berkeley. The facility will provide Berkeley researchers with a set of reference frequencies, known to the precision of the best atomic clocks, throughout the optical spectrum - an extremely powerful tool, which has been recognized by the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. The research made possible by the Facility includes testing the constancy of the fundamental 'constants' of nature, atom interferometry to explore the physics beyond the standard model and gravity, trapped ions for quantum information processing and quantum computing, a trapped-ion frequency standard to be shared between all users via the facility, ultracold molecules which are the natural extension of the ultracold-atom revolution of the 1990s, and massively parallel data communication via the millions of frequencies within a comb. The intellectual merit of the project is in that it will enable researchers to take advantage of a window of tremendous opportunity in terms of cutting-edge science in the area of inquiry that has been an inexhaustible source of discovery ever since the advent of the first atomic clocks over half a century ago. The broader impacts will be in that the Comb Facility will become an instrument for training scores of graduate and undergraduate students and post-doctoral scholars; in fostering International collaboration; in outreach to K-12 students and the public, and in fostering cross-disciplinary connections, for example, those between AMO physics on the one hand and cosmology, chemistry, nuclear physics, and materials science on the other.