Atomic Interferometry with Bose–Einstein Condensates

A special issue of Atoms (ISSN 2218-2004).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2021) | Viewed by 13922

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
Interests: Bose-Einstein condensates; Fermi degenerate gases; atom interferometry; ultracold molecules and few-body systems

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Guest Editor
Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA-22911, USA
Interests: Bose-Einstein condensation; atom interferometry; quantum sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wave–particle duality is a bedrock of our highly successful quantum theory of nature. While the notion of an atom wave has been part of the established structure of quantum mechanics for a century, it was only in the 1990s that the first atom interferometers and dilute gas Bose–Einstein condensates were demonstrated. These two key experimental milestones provided us with direct access to atomic waves and their manipulation, consequently opening up a range of new fundamental sciences and applications.

Interferometry with de Broglie waves has been used for inertial sensing of accelerations and rotations, for measurements of gravity and its gradient, for precision measurements of atomic interactions, and for tests of fundamental theories such as quantum electrodynamics and the equivalence principle. Laser-cooled atoms have been a principal source of de Broglie waves for such precision atom interferometry.

Dilute gas Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) represent the ultimate de Broglie atom wave; they are sometimes referred to as “atom lasers” since they possess coherence properties similar to their optical wave counterpart. After initial demonstrations of interference phenomena with BECs, several research groups have developed BEC-based atom interferometric applications, exploiting advantages from the inherent narrow momentum distribution of the atom source as well as its correlation properties. While these attributes represent clear advantages over laser-cooled sources, BEC production technology is considerably more demanding. With recent advances in rapid BEC production, the availability of commercial BEC systems, and even BECs in space, these technical challenges are being efficiently countered.

This Special Issue of Atoms will highlight recent work on BEC-based atom interferometry for fundamental physics and applications. Covering both experimental and theoretical aspects, it will provide a snapshot of the current status of this field. Topics of interest include precision measurements and quantum sensing, advances in interferometric techniques, and interferometry with correlated atomic states.

As BEC production and manipulation technology advances, we anticipate that this Special Issue will also serve as a useful resource for future work in the field of atom interferometry with Bose–Einstein condensates. We welcome original research articles as well as pedagogical reviews on specific topics.

Dr. Subhadeep Gupta
Dr. Charles Sackett
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Bose–Einstein condensation
  • atom interferometry
  • quantum sensing
  • quantum mechanics
  • ultracold atoms
  • de Broglie waves
  • entangled states.

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 530 KiB  
Article
Modeling Atom Interferometry Experiments with Bose–Einstein Condensates in Power-Law Potentials
by Stephen Thomas, Colson Sapp, Charles Henry, Andrew Smith, Charles A. Sackett, Charles W. Clark and Mark Edwards
Atoms 2022, 10(1), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms10010034 - 21 Mar 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2876
Abstract
Recent atom interferometry (AI) experiments involving Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) have been conducted under extreme conditions of volume and interrogation time. Numerical solution of the rotating-frame Gross–Pitaevskii equation (RFGPE), which is the standard mean-field theory applied to these experiments, is impractical due to the [...] Read more.
Recent atom interferometry (AI) experiments involving Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) have been conducted under extreme conditions of volume and interrogation time. Numerical solution of the rotating-frame Gross–Pitaevskii equation (RFGPE), which is the standard mean-field theory applied to these experiments, is impractical due to the excessive computation time and memory required. We present a variational model that provides approximate solutions of the RFGPE for a power-law potential on a practical time scale. This model is well-suited to the design and analysis of AI experiments involving BECs that are split and later recombined to form an interference pattern. We derive the equations of motion of the variational parameters for this model and illustrate how the model can be applied to the sequence of steps in a recent AI experiment where BECs were used to implement a dual-Sagnac atom interferometer rotation sensor. We use this model to investigate the impact of finite-size and interaction effects on the single-Sagnac-interferometer phase shift. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atomic Interferometry with Bose–Einstein Condensates)
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11 pages, 2709 KiB  
Article
Interferometry in an Atomic Fountain with Ytterbium Bose–Einstein Condensates
by Daniel Gochnauer, Tahiyat Rahman, Anna Wirth-Singh and Subhadeep Gupta
Atoms 2021, 9(3), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms9030058 - 25 Aug 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3036
Abstract
We present enabling experimental tools and atom interferometer implementations in a vertical “fountain” geometry with ytterbium Bose–Einstein condensates. To meet the unique challenge of the heavy, non-magnetic atom, we apply a shaped optical potential to balance against gravity following evaporative cooling and demonstrate [...] Read more.
We present enabling experimental tools and atom interferometer implementations in a vertical “fountain” geometry with ytterbium Bose–Einstein condensates. To meet the unique challenge of the heavy, non-magnetic atom, we apply a shaped optical potential to balance against gravity following evaporative cooling and demonstrate a double Mach–Zehnder interferometer suitable for applications such as gravity gradient measurements. Furthermore, we also investigate the use of a pulsed optical potential to act as a matter wave lens in the vertical direction during expansion of the Bose–Einstein condensate. This method is shown to be even more effective than the aforementioned shaped optical potential. The application of this method results in a reduction of velocity spread (or equivalently an increase in source brightness) of more than a factor of five, which we demonstrate using a two-pulse momentum-space Ramsey interferometer. The vertical geometry implementation of our diffraction beams ensures that the atomic center of mass maintains overlap with the pulsed atom optical elements, thus allowing extension of atom interferometer times beyond what is possible in a horizontal geometry. Our results thus provide useful tools for enhancing the precision of atom interferometry with ultracold ytterbium atoms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atomic Interferometry with Bose–Einstein Condensates)
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22 pages, 7271 KiB  
Article
Microwave Atom Chip Design
by William Miyahira, Andrew P. Rotunno, ShuangLi Du and Seth Aubin
Atoms 2021, 9(3), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms9030054 - 5 Aug 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2265
Abstract
We present a toolbox of microstrip building blocks for microwave atom chips geared towards trapped atom interferometry. Transverse trapping potentials based on the AC Zeeman (ACZ) effect can be formed from the combined microwave magnetic near fields of a pair or a triplet [...] Read more.
We present a toolbox of microstrip building blocks for microwave atom chips geared towards trapped atom interferometry. Transverse trapping potentials based on the AC Zeeman (ACZ) effect can be formed from the combined microwave magnetic near fields of a pair or a triplet of parallel microstrip transmission lines. Axial confinement can be provided by a microwave lattice (standing wave) along the microstrip traces. Microwave fields provide additional parameters for dynamically adjusting ACZ potentials: detuning of the applied frequency to select atomic transitions and local polarization controlled by the relative phase in multiple microwave currents. Multiple ACZ traps and potentials, operating at different frequencies, can be targeted to different spin states simultaneously, thus enabling spin-specific manipulation of atoms and spin-dependent trapped atom interferometry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atomic Interferometry with Bose–Einstein Condensates)
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12 pages, 349 KiB  
Article
Semiclassical Phase Analysis for a Trapped-Atom Sagnac Interferometer
by Zhe Luo, E. R. Moan and C. A. Sackett
Atoms 2021, 9(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms9020021 - 27 Mar 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2677
Abstract
A Sagnac atom interferometer can be constructed using a Bose–Einstein condensate trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic potential. Using the Bragg interaction with a set of laser beams, the atoms can be launched into circular orbits, with two counterpropagating interferometers allowing many sources [...] Read more.
A Sagnac atom interferometer can be constructed using a Bose–Einstein condensate trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic potential. Using the Bragg interaction with a set of laser beams, the atoms can be launched into circular orbits, with two counterpropagating interferometers allowing many sources of common-mode noise to be excluded. In a perfectly symmetric and harmonic potential, the interferometer output would depend only on the rotation rate of the apparatus. However, deviations from the ideal case can lead to spurious phase shifts. These phase shifts have been theoretically analyzed for anharmonic perturbations up to quartic in the confining potential, as well as angular deviations of the laser beams, timing deviations of the laser pulses, and motional excitations of the initial condensate. Analytical and numerical results show the leading effects of the perturbations to be second order. The scaling of the phase shifts with the number of orbits and the trap axial frequency ratio are determined. The results indicate that sensitive parameters should be controlled at the 105 level to accommodate a rotation sensing accuracy of 109 rad/s. The leading-order perturbations are suppressed in the case of perfect cylindrical symmetry, even in the presence of anharmonicity and other errors. An experimental measurement of one of the perturbation terms is presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Atomic Interferometry with Bose–Einstein Condensates)
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