Christophe Salomon

Biography

Christophe Salomon is Director of Research at the CNRS, member of the Kastler Brossel Laboratory (Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) – CNRS – PSL-Sorbonne Université – Collège de France) and head of the Ultra-Cold Fermi Gases team at ENS. A recognized specialist in cold atoms, Christophe Salomon has worked on their application to time measurement and fundamental physics tests with atomic clocks. He has also studied the properties of quantum gases cooled to nanokelvin temperatures, such as superfluidity and matter-wave solitons. Ultra-cold gases are very well controlled systems, enabling us to test the theoretical models of N-body physics often developed to describe the properties of electrons in solids. As part of the European ACES/PHARAO space project, Christophe Salomon is interested in ultrastable clocks in space and tests of general relativity. Christophe Salomon is a member of the French Academy of Sciences.

Conference: Is the ticking of atomic clocks really regular?

For several millennia, the measurement of time has been at the heart of social and economic life. Initially based on the observation of periodic natural phenomena such as the Earth’s rotation or lunar cycles, Galileo and Huygens’ invention of the pendulum ushered in the era of high-precision clocks. Today, quantum technologies and laser-cooled atoms are at the heart of modern clocks. These devices show an error of less than one second on the age of the universe, around 14 billion years. In this presentation, the principles of atomic clocks will be discussed, along with applications such as satellite navigation systems or tests of fundamental physical laws. Finally, prospects for even more stable clocks using degenerate quantum gases or correlated atoms will be outlined.