Differential interferometry using a Bose-Einstein condensate
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THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL D
Regular Article
Differential interferometry using a Bose-Einstein condensate? Matthias Gersemann1,a , Martina Gebbe2 , Sven Abend1 , Christian Schubert1,3 , and Ernst M. Rasel1 1 2
3
Institut f¨ ur Quantenoptik, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universit¨ at Hannover, Welfengarten 1, D-30167 Hannover, Germany Zentrum f¨ ur angewandte Raumfahrttechnologie und Mikrogravitation (ZARM), Universit¨ at Bremen, Am Fallturm D-28359, Bremen, Germany Deutsches Zentrum f¨ ur Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Institut f¨ ur Satellitengeod¨ asie und Inertialsensorik, c/o Leibniz Universit¨ at Hannover, DLR-SI, Callinstraße 36, 30167 Hannover, Germany Received 28 July 2020 / Accepted 14 August 2020 Published online 1 October 2020 c The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract. Out of a single Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), we create two simultaneous interferometers, as employed for the differentiation between rotations and accelerations. Our method exploits the precise motion control of BECs combined with the precise momentum transfer by double Bragg diffraction for interferometry. In this way, the scheme avoids the complexity of two BEC sources and can be readily extended to a six-axis quantum inertial measurement unit.
1 Introduction Atom interferometers have various applications in many different fields like fundamental physics [1–6], geodesy [7–10], and inertial sensing [11]. Exploiting cold or ultracold atomic ensembles, they serve to precisely measure rotations [12–15], accelerations [10,16,17], and gravity gradients [18,19]. With few exceptions, most experiments today use laser-cooled atoms. Their dominating systematic errors are connected to the motion of the atoms [10, 20,21]. The latter can be reduced by using ensembles with a narrower momentum distribution and a well-controlled mean velocity. In this paper, we demonstrate a dual BEC interferometer sensitive to rotations and accelerations. Indeed, presently the most narrow momentum distributions are achieved by exploiting evaporated atoms or even BECs [22–24]. The application of BECs has several advantages: (i) their small spatial wave packet extension and expansion reduce effects stemming from the coherent interaction with inhomogeneous light fields [21,25] creating the interferometer. (ii) They allow extending the time the atoms spend in the interferometer. (iii) Moreover, BECs enable efficient Bragg and Raman processes and, therefore, a high interferometric contrast in the corresponding interferometers [26,27]. These features are especially beneficial for inertial sensing with so-called Mach-Zehnder-type atom interferometers (MZI) where a wave packet is subsequently split, ? Contribution to the Topical Issue “Quantum Technologies for Gravitational Physics”, edited by Tanja Mehlst¨ aubler, Yanbei Chen, Guglielmo M. Tino, Hsien-Chi Yeh. a e-mail: [email protected]
reflected, and recombined by interacting with three successive, retro-reflected laser pulses driving Bragg or Raman p
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