The Yocto Clock

A clock fast enough to characterize a link can use as a timing source out cobalt-60, a radioactive element with a half-life of a little over five years. When it decays a neutron in the nucleus turns into a proton and W boson. The W boson then decays into an electron and electron antineutrino. And the time it takes for a W boson to decay is on average three-tenths of a yoctosecond, a trillion-trillionth of a second. The time interval needed.

Now it is necessary to detect the change in the nucleus when the neutron becomes a proton and detect the emergence of the electron. The electron would be easy but the difference in mass between cobalt-60 and its decay product is impossibly small (a bit over a thousandth of a percent).

But by using electron capture it is possible to turn the decay product back into cobalt-60. If the atom is “squeezed” either electrically or with lasers an electron can be forced to move from a lower shell down into the nucleus where it is captured by a proton, which turns into a neutron giving us back an isotope of cobalt-60 and giving off light in the process which can be detected.

If each cobalt-60 atom is placed in its own molecular cage, such as the molecule carbon-60, it is possible to detect both the decaying electron and the pulse of light, the time between being again approximately three-tenths of a yocto second.

With the Yocto Clock and a spin-two drive to control the pulse of negative energy to send into a link the device for characterization of link length and bends is complete.