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arXiv:0909.0705 · Physical Review A

Rabi interferometry and sensitive measurement of the Casimir-Polder force with ultracold gases

Jan Chwedeńczuk, Luca Pezzè, Francesco Piazza, Augusto Smerzi

Published Sep 9, 2010• 15 citations
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Abstract

We show that Rabi oscillations of a degenerate fermionic or bosonic gas trapped in a double-well potential can be exploited for the interferometric measurement of external forces at micrometer length scales. The Rabi interferometer is less sensitive but easier to implement than the Mach-Zehnder, since it does not require dynamical beam-splitting or recombination processes. As an application we propose a measurement of the Casimir-Polder force acting between the atoms and a dielectric surface. We find that even if the interferometer is fed with a coherent state of relatively small number of atoms, and in the presence of realistic experimental noise, the force might be measured with a sensitivity sufficient to discriminate between thermal and zero-temperature regimes of the Casimir-Polder potential. Higher sensitivities can be reached with bosonic spin squeezed states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.82.032104

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We show that Rabi oscillations of a degenerate fermionic or bosonic gas trapped in a double-well potential can be exploited for the interferometric measurement of external forces at micrometer length scales. The Rabi interferometer is less sensitive but easier to implement than the Mach-Zehnder, since it does not require dynamical beam-splitting or recombination processes. As an application we propose a measurement of the Casimir-Polder force acting between the atoms and a dielectric surface. We find that even if the interferometer is fed with a coherent state of relatively small number of atoms, and in the presence of realistic experimental noise, the force might be measured with a sensitivity sufficient to discriminate between thermal and zero-temperature regimes of the Casimir-Polder potential. Higher sensitivities can be reached with bosonic spin squeezed states.
We present the first direct measurements of Casimir-Polder forces between solid surfaces and atomic gases in the transition regime between the electrostatic short-distance and the retarded long-distance limit. The experimental method is based on ultracold ground-state Rb atoms that are reflected from evanescent wave barriers at the surface of a dielectric glass prism. Our novel approach does not require assumptions about the potential shape. The experimental data are compared to the theoretical predictions valid in the different regimes. They agree best with a full QED calculation.
We present a detailed study of an atom interferometer which can be realized in a double-well potential. We assume that the interferometric phase is imprinted in the presence of coherent tunneling between the wells. We calculate the ultimate bounds for the estimation sensitivity and show how they relate to the precision of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The interferometer presented here allows for sub-shot-noise sensitivity when fed with spin-squeezed states with either a reduced relative population imbalance or a reduced relative phase. We also calculate the precision of the estimation from the population imbalance and show that it overcomes the shot-noise limit when the entangled squeezed states are used at the input.
Abstract Modern laboratory techniques make possible the investigation of the role of the Casimir–Polder force in experiments on Bose–Einstein condensation and quantum reflection. Thus, it has been demonstrated that the collective oscillations of a Bose–Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms provide a sensitive probe of Casimir–Polder forces. Later, the first measurement of the temperature dependence of the Casimir–Polder force was performed in this way. The Casimir–Polder interaction plays an important role in the scattering of atoms on various surfaces. Of special interest are situations where the wave nature of an atom dominates in comparison with its classical behavior as a particle (this is referred to as quantum reflection). This chapter considers both of the latter two types of experiments in connection with the properties of the Casimir–Polder force.
Abstract The coherent manipulation of a quantum wave is at the core of quantum sensing. For instance, atom interferometers require linear splitting and recombination processes to map the accumulated phase shift into a measurable population signal. Although Bose Einstein condensates (BECs) are the archetype of coherent matter waves, their manipulation between trapped spatial modes has been limited by the strong interparticle collisions. Here, we overcome this problem by using BECs with tunable interaction trapped in an innovative array of double-well potentials and exploiting quantum tunneling to realize linear beam splitting. We operate several Mach-Zehnder interferometers in parallel, canceling common-mode potential instabilities by a differential analysis, thus demonstrating a trapped-atom gradiometer. Furthermore, by applying a spin-echo protocol, we suppress additional decoherence sources and approach unprecedented coherence times of one second. Our interferometer will find applications in precision measurements of forces with a high spatial resolution and in linear manipulation of quantum entangled states for sensing with sub shot-noise sensitivity.
We report on the first measurement of a temperature dependence of the Casimir-Polder force. This measurement was obtained by positioning a nearly pure 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate a few microns from a dielectric substrate and exciting its dipole oscillation. Changes in the collective oscillation frequency of the magnetically trapped atoms result from spatial variations in the surface-atom force. In our experiment, the dielectric substrate is heated up to 605 K, while the surrounding environment is kept near room temperature (310 K). The effect of the Casimir-Polder force is measured to be nearly 3 times larger for a 605 K substrate than for a room-temperature substrate, showing a clear temperature dependence in agreement with theory.