Analysis of the blackbody-radiation shift in an ytterbium optical lattice clock**Project supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2012CB821302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11134003), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2014AA123401), and the Shanghai Excellent Academic Leaders Program of China (Grant No.

Abstract

We accurately evaluate the blackbody-radiation shift in a 171Yb optical lattice clock by utilizing temperature measurement and numerical simulation. In this work. three main radiation sources are considered for the blackbody-radiation shift, including the heated atomic oven, the warm vacuum chamber, and the room-temperature vacuum windows. The temperatures on the outer surface of the vacuum chamber are measured during the clock operation period by utilizing seven calibrated temperature sensors. Then we infer the temperature distribution inside the vacuum chamber by numerical simulation according to the measured temperatures. Furthermore, we simulate the temperature variation around the cold atoms while the environmental temperature is fluctuating. Finally, we obtain that the total blackbody-radiation shift is -1.289(7) Hz with an uncertainty of 1.25 × 10−17 for our 171Yb optical lattice clock. The presented method is quite suitable for accurately evaluating the blackbody-radiation shift of the optical lattice clock in the case of lacking the sensors inside the vacuum chamber.