Limitations for field-enhanced atom interferometry

Abstract

We discuss the possibility to enhance the sensitivity of optical interferometric devices by increasing its open area using an external field gradient that act differently on the two arms of the interferometers. The use of combined electric and magnetic field cancel non linear terms that dephases the interferometer. This is possible using well defined (typically with n ∼ 20 Rydberg) states, a magnetic field of few Tesla and an electric field gradient of ∼ 10V/cm 2 . However this allows only for interaction times on the order of tens of µs leading a reachable accuracy of only 1 or 2 order of magnitude higher than standard light-pulse atom interferometers. Furthermore, the control of fields and states and 3D trajectories puts severe limits to the reachable accuracy. This idea is therefore not suitable for precision measurement but might eventually be used for gravity or neutrality in antimatter studies.PACS numbers:

Realization of a complete Stern-Gerlach interferometer: Toward a test of quantum gravity

“…In addition, our atom chip setup is compatible with cryogenic environments and may hence probe cold surfaces, while laser light may cause unwanted heating. Last, know-how described in this work may assist to advance also other interferometric configurations that use static fields, e.g., electric fields ( 26 , 27 ).…”

Field-gradient measurement using a Stern-Gerlach atomic interferometer with butterfly geometry

“…We highlight that the magnetic-field gradient pulse can provide an additional control in the momentum transfer δp to increase the sensitivity of the interferometer compared with using the conventional laser pulses [53]. One in Eq.…”

“…As recently pointed out in Ref. [53], the laser-pulse-based atomic interferometer has a limitation of increasing the momentum difference of the wave packets while employing external fields to give a momentum difference may resolve this drawback. As a remark, since the difference between the initial and final positions is required to be large, it is beneficial to have the direction of an initial velocity to be the same as that of the linear force.…”

“…This provides a higher sensitivity to the acceleration induced by the external field than the conventional atomic fountain using Raman transitions, rendering T 2 scaling. Along with this proposal, it has been shown that external fields instead of laser-pulses can be exploited to enhance the precision of matter-wave interferometers [53].…”

Stable quantum interference enabled by coexisting detuned and resonant STIRAPs*

“…In reality, a high-quality interference based on the quality of a quantum system is still very limited due to the imperfect stability of external magnetic or optical fields under real implementation, which can sensitively dephase the interference by artificial measurement or noise effect. [17] Although a large number of approaches for overcoming the instability or imperfect measurement have been proposed, e.g., quantum nondemolition measurement allows repeated detection of quantum states without destroying them; [18] quantum plasmonics experiments exhibit remarkable preservation of coherence, [19] a more precise atom interferometry is achieved by transferring the photon momentum to atoms while minimizing its uncertainty; [20] however it is still challenging for realizing extremely stable quantum interference in a well-defined isolated system.…”