Lithium atom interferometer using laser diffraction: description and experiments

Miffre, Alain; Jacquey, Marion; Büchner, Matthias; Trénec, Gérard; Vigué, J.

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2005-00011-3

Cited by 37 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Using our lithium atom interferometer [5,6], we have made an experiment very similar to the one of D. Pritchard [4] and we have measured the electric polarizability of lithium with a 0.66% uncertainty, limited by the uncertainty on the mean atom velocity and not by the atom interferometric measurement itself [8]. In the present paper, we are going to describe in detail our experiment with emphasis on the improvements with respect to the experiments of D. Pritchard's group [4,9]: we have designed a capacitor with an analytically calculable electric field; we have obtained a considerably larger phase sensitivity, thanks to a large atomic flux and an excellent fringe visibility; finally our interferometer, which uses laser diffraction, is species selective: the contribution of any impurity (heavier alkali atoms, lithium dimers) to the signal can be neglected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atom interferometry measurement of the electric polarizability of lithium

Miffre

Jacquey²,

Büchner³

et al. 2006

Eur. Phys. J. D

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Using an atom interferometer, we have measured the static electric polarizability of 7 Li α = (24.33 ± 0.16) × 10 −30 m 3 = 164.19 ± 1.08 atomic units with a 0.66% uncertainty. Our experiment, which is similar to an experiment done on sodium in 1995 by D. Pritchard and co-workers, consists in applying an electric field on one of the two interfering beams and measuring the resulting phaseshift. With respect to D. Pritchard's experiment, we have made several improvements which are described in detail in this paper: the capacitor design is such that the electric field can be calculated analytically; the phase sensitivity of our interferometer is substantially better, near 16 mrad/ √ Hz; finally our interferometer is species selective so that impurities present in our atomic beam (other alkali atoms or lithium dimers) do not perturb our measurement. The extreme sensitivity of atom interferometry is well illustrated by our experiment: our measurement amounts to measuring a slight increase ∆v of the atom velocity v when it enters the electric field region and our present sensitivity is sufficient to detect a variation ∆v/v ≈ 6 × 10 −13 .

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atom interferometry measurement of the electric polarizability of lithium

Miffre

Jacquey²,

Büchner³

et al. 2006

Eur. Phys. J. D

Self Cite

123

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“…As beam splitters, we use multiphoton Bragg diffraction of matter waves at an optical lattice [11,[18][19][20]. The optical lattice is formed by two counterpropagating laser beams that we may call the top and bottom beam (Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

Noise-Immune Conjugate Large-Area Atom Interferometers

et al. 2009

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We present a pair of simultaneous conjugate Ramsey-Bordé atom interferometers (SCI) using large (20hk)-momentum transfer (LMT) beam splitters, wherehk is the photon momentum. Simultaneous operation allows for common-mode rejection of vibrational noise. This allows us to surpass the enclosed space-time area of previous interferometers with a splitting of 20hk by a factor of 2,500.Among applications, we demonstrate a 3.4 ppb resolution in the fine structure constant and discuss tests of fundamental laws of physics.

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“…Our Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer has been described in detail [17] and it is schematically represented in figure 1. The atomic beam is produced by a supersonic expansion of natural lithium seeded in a large excess of a noble gas which fixes the mean beam velocity v m of the lithium atoms: v m scales like 1/ √ M , where M is the noble gas atomic mass (see table 2).…”

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“…The laser used to produce the standing waves is a single frequency dye laser. Its wavelength λ L is chosen on the blue side of the 2 S 1/2 → 2 P 3/2 transition of 7 Li at 671 nm: this choice and the natural abundance of 7 Li (92.5%) explain the fact, that only 7 Li contributes to the interferometer signal [17,20]. This signal can be written as:…”

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confidence: 99%

Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

et al. 2014

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-In this letter, we report a measurement of the Aharonov-Casher (AC) geometric phase with our lithium atom interferometer. The AC phase appears when a particle carrying a magnetic dipole propagates in a transverse electric field. The first measurement of the AC phase was done with a neutron interferometer in 1989 by A. Cimmino et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 380, 1989) and all the following experiments were done with Ramsey or Ramsey-Bordé interferometers with molecules or atoms. In our experiment, we use lithium atoms pumped in a single hyperfineZeeman sublevel and we measure the AC-phase by applying opposite electric fields on the two interferometer arms. Our measurements are in good agreement with the expected theoretical values and they prove that this phase is independent of the atom velocity.In 1984, Y. Aharonov, and A. Casher [1] discovered the geometric phase which is called by their name. This phase appears when a particle with a magnetic dipole interacts with an electric field perpendicular to both the particle velocity and to the magnetic dipole. This phase had also been discussed by J. Anandan [2], who did not remark its unusual properties. The Aharonov-Casher (AC) phase is the second example of a geometric phase, after the Aharonov-Bohm phase [3]. A third geometric phase predicted in 1993/1994 by X.-G. He, B.H.J. McKellar [4] and by M. Wilkens [5] is now named the He-McKellarWilkens (HMW) phase, and we have recently measured this phase [6,7]. This phase appears, if an electric dipole travels in a magnetic field B and if the scalar triple product of the dipole, B and the velocity vectors is not zero. All these phases belong to the general class of geometric phases discussed by M.V. Berry in 1984 [8,9] and they are very interesting because they strongly differ from dynamical phases: geometric phases modify the wave propagation in the absence of any force on the particle; they are independent of the modulus of the particle velocity but they change sign if the velocity is reversed.In the present letter, we describe measurements of the AC phase shift using a separated-arm 7 Li atom interferometer using Bragg diffraction on laser standing waves.The internal quantum state of the atom is the same in the two interferometer arms and we apply opposite electric fields and a common magnetic field on the two interferometer arms. The atom fringes are phase shifted by both the AC and the HMW phases. The AC phase is proportional to the atom magnetic dipole moment, thus depends on the magnetic sublevel, while the HMW phase is independent. By combining measurements made with the 7 Li atoms pumped in F = 2 either in m F = +2 or in m F = −2, we can extract both phases. In the following, we focus on the AC phase measurements. As explained below, this is the first AC phase measurement of this type and the sensitivity of our atom interferometer has enabled us to test the velocity dependence of this phase.Since its theoretical discovery, the AC phase has been tested in five different experiments [10][11][12][13]...

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Lithium atom interferometer using laser diffraction: description and experiments

Cited by 37 publications

References 47 publications

Atom interferometry measurement of the electric polarizability of lithium

Atom interferometry measurement of the electric polarizability of lithium

Noise-Immune Conjugate Large-Area Atom Interferometers

Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

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