Regular Article

Theoretical investigation of the black-body Zeeman shift for microwave atomic clocks

¹ Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R. China
² State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R. China
³ Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R. China

^a e-mail: zhangjw@tsinghua.edu.cn

Received: 11 July 2018
Received in final form: 16 October 2018
Published online: 15 January 2019

Abstract

With the development of microwave atomic clocks, the Zeeman shifts for the spectral lines of black-body radiation need to be investigated carefully. In this paper, the frequency shifts of hyperfine splittings of atomic ground states due to the magnetic field of black-body radiation are reported. The relative frequency shifts of different alkali atoms and alkali-like ions, which could be candidates of microwave atomic clocks, were calculated. The results vary from −0.977 × 10⁻¹⁷[T(K)/300]² to −1.947 × 10⁻¹⁷[T(K)/300]² for different atoms considered. These results are consistent with previous work but with greater precision, detailed derivations, and a clear physical picture.