Meier Florian, Schwarzhans Emanuel, Erker Paul, Huber Marcus
Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Atominstitut, Technische Universität Wien, 1020 Vienna, Austria.
Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
Phys Rev Lett. 2023 Dec 1;131(22):220201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.220201.
From a thermodynamic point of view, all clocks are driven by irreversible processes. Additionally, one can use oscillatory systems to temporally modulate the thermodynamic flux towards equilibrium. Focusing on the most elementary thermalization events, this modulation can be thought of as a temporal probability concentration for these events. There are two fundamental factors limiting the performance of clocks: On the one level, the inevitable drifts of the oscillatory system, which are addressed by finding stable atomic or nuclear transitions that lead to astounding precision of today's clocks. On the other level, there is the intrinsically stochastic nature of the irreversible events upon which the clock's operation is based. This becomes relevant when seeking to maximize a clock's resolution at high accuracy, which is ultimately limited by the number of such stochastic events per reference time unit. We address this essential trade-off between clock accuracy and resolution, proving a universal bound for all clocks whose elementary thermalization events are memoryless.
从热力学的角度来看，所有时钟都是由不可逆过程驱动的。此外，人们可以使用振荡系统来对趋向平衡的热力学通量进行时间调制。聚焦于最基本的热化事件，这种调制可以被视为这些事件的时间概率集中。有两个基本因素限制了时钟的性能：一方面，振荡系统不可避免的漂移，通过寻找稳定的原子或核跃迁来解决，这使得当今的时钟具有惊人的精度。另一方面，时钟运行所基于的不可逆事件具有内在的随机性。当试图在高精度下最大化时钟分辨率时，这一点就变得很重要了，而时钟分辨率最终受限于每个参考时间单位内此类随机事件的数量。我们探讨了时钟精度和分辨率之间的这种基本权衡，证明了所有基本热化事件无记忆的时钟的一个通用界限。
