Towards Adoption of an Optical Second: Verifying Optical Clocks at the SI Limit

The pursuit of ever more precise measures of time and frequency is likely to lead to the eventual redefinition of the second in terms of an optical atomic transition. To ensure continuity with the current definition, based on a microwave transition between hyperfine levels in ground-state ^133Cs, it is necessary to measure the absolute frequency of candidate standards, which is done by comparing against a primary cesium reference. A key verification of this process can be achieved by performing a loop closure-comparing frequency ratios derived from absolute frequency measurements against ratios determined from direct optical comparisons. We measure the ^1S_0→^3P_0 transition of ^171Yb by comparing the clock frequency to an international frequency standard with the aid of a maser ensemble serving as a flywheel oscillator. Our measurements consist of 79 separate runs spanning eight months, and we determine the absolute frequency to be 518 295 836 590 863.71(11) Hz, the uncertainty of which is equivalent to a fractional frequency of 2.1×10^-16. This absolute frequency measurement, the most accurate reported for any transition, allows us to close the Cs-Yb-Sr-Cs frequency measurement loop at an uncertainty of <3×10^-16, limited by the current realization of the SI second. We use these measurements to tighten the constraints on variation of the electron-to-proton mass ratio, μ=m_e/m_p. Incorporating our measurements with the entire record of Yb and Sr absolute frequency measurements, we infer a coupling coefficient to gravitational potential of k_μ=(-1.9± 9.4)×10^-7 and a drift with respect to time of μ̇/μ=(5.3 ± 6.5)×10^-17/yr.