Coherent matter wave inertial sensors for precision measurements in space

Coq, Yann Le; Retter, Jocelyn A.; Richard, Simon; Aspect, Alain; Bouyer, Philippe

doi:10.1007/s00340-006-2363-2

Cited by 28 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…The contrast interferometer of Pritchard and co-workers [93], which operates with a sodium BEC, has given a precision of 7 ppm on h/M N a , but the result differs by 200 ppm from the accepted value, a difference attributed to the mean-field interaction in the condensate. A recent experiment [94] by Aspect and co-workers with a rubidium BEC has observed a similar shift which has been quantitatively related to the mean-field interaction in the expanding BEC.…”

Section: Measurement Of H/m and Of The Fine Structure Constant αmentioning

confidence: 73%

Atom interferometry

et al. 2006

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In this paper, we present a brief overview of atom interferometry. This field of research has developed very rapidly since 1991. Atom and light wave interferometers present some similarities but there are very important differences in the tools used to manipulate these two types of waves. Moreover, the sensitivity of atomic waves and light waves to their environment is very different. Atom interferometry has already been used for a large variety of studies: measurements of atomic properties and of inertial effects (accelerations and rotations), new access to some fundamental constants, observation of quantum decoherence, etc. We review the techniques used for a coherent manipulation of atomic waves and the main applications of atom interferometers.

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Section: Measurement Of H/m and Of The Fine Structure Constant αmentioning

confidence: 73%

Atom interferometry

et al. 2006

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“…Some efforts in this direction have already been made experimentally [40], but not in connection with atom interferometry nor focusing on the special properties of the double-diffraction scheme and the much richer dynamics associated with it. The double Bragg diffraction scheme involves a pair of slightly detuned lasers (with frequency difference corresponding to the recoil energy) retroreflected off a mirror, and it is crucial that only two-photon processes involving counterpropagating beams (with unequal frequencies) take place, while those associated with copropagating beams should be entirely suppressed.…”

Section: B Microgravity Environments and Double Bragg Diffractionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Double Bragg diffraction: A tool for atom optics

et al. 2013

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The use of retro-reflection in light-pulse atom interferometry under microgravity conditions naturally leads to a double-diffraction scheme. The two pairs of counterpropagating beams induce simultaneously transitions with opposite momentum transfer that, when acting on atoms initially at rest, give rise to symmetric interferometer configurations where the total momentum transfer is automatically doubled and where a number of noise sources and systematic effects cancel out. Here we extend earlier implementations for Raman transitions to the case of Bragg diffraction. In contrast with the single-diffraction case, the existence of additional off-resonant transitions between resonantly connected states precludes the use of the adiabatic elimination technique. Nevertheless, we have been able to obtain analytic results even beyond the deep Bragg regime by employing the so-called "method of averaging," which can be applied to more general situations of this kind. Our results have been validated by comparison to numerical solutions of the basic equations describing the double-diffraction process.Comment: 26 pages, 20 figures; minor changes to match the published versio

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“…Practical applications of AIs include geodesic surveys connected with oil, natural gas and mineral exploration, as well as the accurate determination of tidal variations. The development of portable sensors to realize this goal has been the focus of extensive research [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstration of improved sensitivity of echo interferometers to gravitational acceleration

Mok¹,

Barrett²,

Carew³

et al. 2013

Phys. Rev. A

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We have developed two configurations of an echo interferometer that rely on standing wave excitation of a laser-cooled sample of rubidium atoms. Both configurations can be used to measure acceleration a along the axis of excitation. For a two-pulse configuration, the signal from the interferometer is modulated at the recoil frequency and exhibits a sinusoidal frequency chirp as a function of pulse spacing. In comparison, for a three-pulse stimulated echo configuration, the signal is observed without recoil modulation and exhibits a modulation at a single frequency as a function of pulse spacing. The three-pulse configuration is less sensitive to effects of vibrations and magnetic field curvature leading to a longer experimental timescale. For both configurations of the atom interferometer (AI), we show that a measurement of acceleration with a statistical precision of 0.5% can be realized by analyzing the shape of the echo envelope that has a temporal duration of a few microseconds. Using the two-pulse AI, we obtain measurements of acceleration that are statistically precise to 6 parts per million (ppm) on a 25 ms timescale. In comparison, using the three-pulse AI, we obtain measurements of acceleration that are statistically precise to 0.4 ppm on a timescale of 50 ms. A further statistical enhancement is achieved by analyzing the data across the echo envelope so that the statistical error is reduced to 75 parts per billion (ppb). The inhomogeneous field of a magnetized vacuum chamber limited the experimental timescale and resulted in prominent systematic effects. Extended timescales and improved signal-to-noise ratio observed in recent echo experiments using a non-magnetic vacuum chamber suggest that echo techniques are suitable for a high precision measurement of gravitational acceleration g. We discuss methods for reducing systematic effects and improving the signal-to-noise ratio. Simulations of both AI configurations with a timescale of 300 ms suggest that an optimized experiment with improved vibration isolation and atoms selected in the mF = 0 state can result in measurements of g statistically precise to 0.3 pbb for the two-pulse AI and 0.6 ppb for the three-pulse AI.

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Coherent matter wave inertial sensors for precision measurements in space

Cited by 28 publications

References 71 publications

Atom interferometry

Atom interferometry

Double Bragg diffraction: A tool for atom optics

Demonstration of improved sensitivity of echo interferometers to gravitational acceleration

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