Physicists from the American institute JILA managed to detect an incredibly small relativistic time dilatation at a distance of just a single millimeter. They needed ultra-cool strontium atoms, many lasers, and ultra-precise atomic clocks.
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Einstein’s general relativity predicts time dilatation as an effect of gravitational fields. The time of the object that is closer to the effect of gravity runs slower than the time of the object which is less affected by gravity. Usually, we can observe it in cosmic objects where large distances and proportions are at play.
Recently, a team from the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) at the campus of the University of Colorado, Boulder achieved a stunning success when they managed to measure time dilatation at the so far shortest distance ever. Quite unbelievably, they detected a time dilatation in two small atomic clocks that were just a single millimeter from each other. The clock that was placed higher by a single millimeter ticked faster. While the difference was incredibly small (about 0.0000000000000000001) it was real.
The research was based on measuring the gravitational red-shift of the top and lowest part of a single simple that included about 100,000 ultra-cool strontium atoms placed on an optical matrix created by laser beams.
These experiments are completely fascinating but they also had a purpose. Based on them we might be capable of building atomic clocks that will be 50 times more precise than the current atomic clocks. And on top of that, they could bring us closer to finally connecting relativity and quantum mechanics as maybe we will be able to study relativity at a level of individual particles.
As Jun Ye – the research lead – says, it is precisely combining relativity with quantum mechanics that is the most exciting about their research.
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