Accurate, Traceable, and Verifiable Time Synchronization for World Financial Markets

Lombardi, Michael A.; Novick, Andrew N.; Neville-Neil, George V.; Cooke, Ben

doi:10.6028/jres.121.023

Cited by 25 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Time is a dimension in which events can be ordered from the past through the present and into the future. Many modern-day technologies rely on the ability to do this accurately and precisely, including navigation [1], telecommunication systems [2], electrical power grids [3], and even electronic transactions on the stock exchange [4]. The most advanced timekeeping can be applied to fundamental science studies [5], such as searches for dark matter [6] and neutrino speed-measurements [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical-Clock-Based Time Scale

et al. 2019

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A time scale is a procedure for accurately and continuously marking the passage of time. It is exemplified by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and provides the backbone for critical navigation tools such as the Global Positioning System (GPS). Present time scales employ microwave atomic clocks, whose attributes can be combined and averaged in a manner such that the composite is more stable, accurate, and reliable than the output of any individual clock. Over the past decade, clocks operating at optical frequencies have been introduced which are orders of magnitude more stable than any microwave clock. However, in spite of their great potential, these optical clocks cannot be operated continuously, which makes their use in a time scale problematic. In this paper, we report the development of a hybrid microwave-optical time scale, which only requires the optical clock to run intermittently while relying upon the ensemble of microwave clocks to serve as the flywheel oscillator. The benefit of using clock ensemble as the flywheel oscillator, instead of a single clock, can be understood by the Dick-effect limit. This time scale demonstrates for the first time sub-nanosecond accuracy for a few months, attaining a fractional frequency stability of 1.45×10 −16 at 30 days and reaching the 10 −17 decade at 50 days, with respect to UTC. This time scale significantly improves the accuracy in timekeeping and could change the existing time-scale architectures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical-Clock-Based Time Scale

et al. 2019

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“…The official time reference for U. S. stock market transactions was chosen to be NIST time, and the first synchronization requirement for financial markets, OATS Rule 6953 [19], went into effect in August 1998. Since then, all major U. S. financial markets require clocks to be referenced to UTC(NIST), and to provide evidence that traceability to NIST has been established [20]. The synchronization requirement was originally just 3 s [19,21].…”

Section: Traceability In Financial Marketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The NISTDC is located in the same data center as the stock exchange, and is used to synchronize NTP and PTP time servers that are also located in the data center. An additional service offered by NIST can now measure and verify the packets transmitted by the time servers by comparing them to the NISTDC [20].…”

Section: Traceability In Financial Marketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metrological and Legal Traceability of Time Signals

Matsakis¹,

Levine²,

Lombardi³

2018

Proceedings of the 49th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting

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Metrological traceability requires an unbroken chain of calibrations that relate to a reference, with each calibration having a documented measurement uncertainty. In the field of time and frequency metrology, the desired reference is usually Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or one or more of its official realizations, termed UTC(k), and traceability to UTC is a legal requirement for many entities. Traceability to UTC can be established in three areasfrequency, time interval, and timeof-day synchronization, but this paper focuses solely on the traceability of time signals used for synchronization. We first examine the definition of traceability, then discuss how traceability can be established via the reception of time signals transmitted by satellites and network time servers, followed by a discussion of how these signals can meet the synchronization and traceability requirements of the financial and electric power industries. Not all of the available UTC time signals are considered in this paper, as we primarily focus on direct broadcast and common-view Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, with uncertainties measured in nanoseconds, and Network Time Protocol (NTP) signals, with uncertainties measured in microseconds and milliseconds.

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“…This affected NIST's financial market customers as described in Ref. [7], although their clocks still remained well within their acceptable tolerances. A few GPS disciplined oscillators operated at the NIST laboratories in Boulder also lost lock, with at least one taking several days to relock.…”

Section: Impact Of the Utc Offset Anomaly On Gps Clocks Monitoredmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of the January 2016 UTC Offset Anomaly on GPS-Controlled Clocks Monitored at NIST

Yao¹,

Lombardi²,

Novick³

et al. 2017

The Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting

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Errors in the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) offset parameters broadcast by Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites caused many thousands of GPS-controlled clocks to be in error by approximately-13 µs on January 25-26, 2016. The erroneous UTC offset information was broadcast by 15 GPS satellites, or half of the available constellation, during the anomaly. This paper discusses the technical reasons for the UTC offset anomaly, its effect on clocks controlled by GPS satellites (hereafter referred to as GPS clocks), and how it was detected at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It then discusses the impact of the UTC offset anomaly on GPS clocks maintained and monitored by NIST, including clocks located in Boulder, Colorado and those at remote locations. Some analysis is presented of the effects of the UTC offset anomaly on GPS clocks located at 19 sites in North, Central, and South America.

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Accurate, Traceable, and Verifiable Time Synchronization for World Financial Markets

Cited by 25 publications

References 41 publications

Optical-Clock-Based Time Scale

Optical-Clock-Based Time Scale

Metrological and Legal Traceability of Time Signals

The Effects of the January 2016 UTC Offset Anomaly on GPS-Controlled Clocks Monitored at NIST

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