Topic
Atom interferometer
About: Atom interferometer is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2110 publications have been published within this topic receiving 49797 citations.
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TL;DR: The production of matter-wave solitons in an ultracold lithium-7 gas opens possibilities for future applications in coherent atom optics, atom interferometry, and atom transport.
Abstract: We report the production of matter-wave solitons in an ultracold lithium-7 gas. The effective interaction between atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate is tuned with a Feshbach resonance from repulsive to attractive before release in a one-dimensional optical waveguide. Propagation of the soliton without dispersion over a macroscopic distance of 1.1 millimeter is observed. A simple theoretical model explains the stability region of the soliton. These matter-wave solitons open possibilities for future applications in coherent atom optics, atom interferometry, and atom transport.
1,294 citations
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TL;DR: The development of wave optics for light brought many new insights into our understanding of physics, driven by fundamental experiments like the ones by Young, Fizeau, Michelson-Morley and others as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The development of wave optics for light brought many new insights into our understanding of physics, driven by fundamental experiments like the ones by Young, Fizeau, Michelson-Morley and others. Quantum mechanics, and especially the de Broglie’s postulate relating the momentum p of a particle to the wave vector k of an matter wave: k = 2 λ = p/ℏ, suggested that wave optical experiments should be also possible with massive particles (see table 1), and over the last 40 years electron and neutron interferometers have demonstrated many fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics [1].
1,194 citations
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TL;DR: The mechanical effects of stimulated Raman transitions on atoms have been used to demonstrate a matter-wave interferometer with laser-cooled sodium atoms that has observed interference for wave packets that have been separated by as much as 2.4 mm.
Abstract: The mechanical effects of stimulated Raman transitions on atoms have been used to demonstrate a matter-wave interferometer with laser-cooled sodium atoms. Interference has been observed for wave packets that have been separated by as much as 2.4 mm. Using the interferometer as an inertial sensor, the acceleration of a sodium atom due to gravity has been measured with a resolution of 3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}6}$ after 1000 sec of integration time.
1,095 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, an atom interferometer based on a fountain of laser-cooled atoms was used to measure the acceleration of gravity, achieving an absolute uncertainty of Δg/g ≈ 3 × 10−9.
Abstract: Laser-cooling of atoms and atom-trapping are finding increasing application in many areas of science1 One important use of laser-cooled atoms is in atom interferometers2 In these devices, an atom is placed into a superposition of two or more spatially separated atomic states; these states are each described by a quantum-mechanical phase term, which will interfere with one another if they are brought back together at a later time Atom interferometers have been shown to be very precise inertial sensors for acceleration3,4, rotation5 and for the measurement of the fine structure constant6 Here we use an atom interferometer based on a fountain of laser-cooled atoms to measure g, the acceleration of gravity Through detailed investigation and elimination of systematic effects that may affect the accuracy ofthe measurement, we achieve an absolute uncertainty of Δg/g ≈ 3 × 10−9, representing a million-fold increase in absoluteaccuracy compared with previous atom-interferometer experiments7 We also compare our measurement with the value of g obtained at the same laboratory site using a Michelson interferometer gravimeter (a modern equivalent of Galileo's ‘leaning tower’ experiment in Pisa) We show that the macroscopic glass object used in this instrument falls with the same acceleration, to within 7 parts in 109, as a quantum-mechanical caesium atom
803 citations
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TL;DR: It is shown experimentally that the classical precision limit can be surpassed using nonlinear atom interferometry with a Bose–Einstein condensate and the results provide information on the many-particle quantum state, and imply the entanglement of 170 atoms.
Abstract: Interference is fundamental to wave dynamics and quantum mechanics. The quantum wave properties of particles are exploited in metrology using atom interferometers, allowing for high-precision inertia measurements. Furthermore, the state-of-the-art time standard is based on an interferometric technique known as Ramsey spectroscopy. However, the precision of an interferometer is limited by classical statistics owing to the finite number of atoms used to deduce the quantity of interest. Here we show experimentally that the classical precision limit can be surpassed using nonlinear atom interferometry with a Bose-Einstein condensate. Controlled interactions between the atoms lead to non-classical entangled states within the interferometer; this represents an alternative approach to the use of non-classical input states. Extending quantum interferometry to the regime of large atom number, we find that phase sensitivity is enhanced by 15 per cent relative to that in an ideal classical measurement. Our nonlinear atomic beam splitter follows the 'one-axis-twisting' scheme and implements interaction control using a narrow Feshbach resonance. We perform noise tomography of the quantum state within the interferometer and detect coherent spin squeezing with a squeezing factor of -8.2 dB (refs 11-15). The results provide information on the many-particle quantum state, and imply the entanglement of 170 atoms.
782 citations