Prospects for 10^{-18} Instability Laser Referenced on Thermal Atomic Ensembles

Abstract: A thermal atomic ensemble-based laser source with superior frequency stability is proposed that relies on the accumulated contributions from an abundance of nonzero-transverse-velocity atomic ensembles. Compared with the traditional case in which only atoms with near-zero transverse velocities are utilized, the amplitude of the optical Ramsey fringes for a thermal calcium beam can be dramatically enhanced by three orders of magnitude or more, thus, the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved 33-fold. Based on the recent results of atomic interferometry-based laser stabilization, a quantum projection noise-limited frequency instability less than 2E-17/tau^0.5 is feasible. Such an ultrastable laser has promising applications in diverse areas, including metrology and astronomy.