Frequency ratio measurement of 171Yb and 87Sr optical lattice clocks

Abstract: The frequency ratio of the 1S0(F=1/2)-3P0(F=1/2) clock transition in 171Yb and the 1S0(F=9/2)-3P0(F=9/2) clock transition in 87Sr is measured by an optical-optical direct frequency link between two optical lattice clocks. We determined the ratio (\nu_{Yb}/\nu_{Sr}) to be 1.207 507 039 343 340 4(18) with a fractional uncertainty of 1.5x10^{-15}. The measurement uncertainty of the frequency ratio is smaller than that obtained from absolute frequency measurements using the International Atomic Time (TAI) link. The measured ratio agrees well with that derived from the absolute frequency measurement results obtained at NIST and JILA, Boulder, CO using their Cs-fountain clock. Our measurement enables the first international comparison of the frequency ratios of optical clocks, and we obtained a good agreement between the two measured ratios with an uncertainty smaller than the TAI link. The measured frequency ratio will be reported to the International Committee for Weights and Measures for a discussion related to the redefinition of the second.