SEMINAR: Stabilized Frequency Transfer for Radio Astronomy and Space Science Applications

The transmission of high-precision frequency references between remote locations is crucial to a wide range of industrial and scientific applications including precision navigation, geodesy, radio astronomy, comparison of atomic timescales, and tests of General Relativity and variations in fundamental constants. However, over long distances the frequency and phase stability of the transmitted signals can be degraded by environmental disturbances, greatly limiting the science that can be done. Stabilization systems are necessary to compensate for the disturbances and improve the accuracy and precision of the transmitted signals. This talk will give an overview of work undertaken at UWA to develop actively stabilized frequency reference transfer systems to phase-synchronize the widely dispersed antennas of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, and to provide a high-precision reference to the Yarragadee Geodetic Observatory as part of UWA’s commitment to the European Space Agency’s Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) mission.