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arXiv:1412.4482 · Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields

Sensing short range forces with a nanosphere matter-wave interferometer

Andrew A. Geraci, Hart Goldman

Published Sep 11, 2015• 49 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We describe a method for sensing short range forces using matter-wave interference in dielectric nanospheres. When compared with atom interferometers, the larger mass of the nanosphere results in reduced wave-packet expansion, enabling investigations of forces nearer to surfaces in a free-fall interferometer. By laser cooling a nanosphere to the ground state of an optical potential and releasing it by turning off the optical trap, acceleration sensing at the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{m}/{\mathrm{s}}^{2}$ level is possible. The approach can yield improved sensitivity to Yukawa-type deviations from Newtonian gravity at the $5\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ length scale by a factor of ${10}^{4}$ over current limits.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.92.062002

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We describe a method for sensing short range forces using matter-wave interference in dielectric nanospheres. When compared with atom interferometers, the larger mass of the nanosphere results in reduced wave-packet expansion, enabling investigations of forces nearer to surfaces in a free-fall interferometer. By laser cooling a nanosphere to the ground state of an optical potential and releasing it by turning off the optical trap, acceleration sensing at the 10\ensuremath−8  m/s2{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{m}/{\mathrm{s}}^{2}10\ensuremath−8  m/s2 level is possible. The approach can yield improved sensitivity to Yukawa-type deviations from Newtonian gravity at the 5  \ensuremathμm5\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}5  \ensuremathμm length scale by a factor of 104{10}^{4}104 over current limits.
We observe matter wave interference of a single cesium atom in free fall. The interferometer is an absolute sensor of acceleration and we show that this technique is sensitive to forces at the level of 3.2×10(-27) N with a spatial resolution at the micron scale. We observe the build up of the interference pattern one atom at a time in a free-space interferometer where the mean path separation extends far beyond the coherence length of the atom. Using the coherence length of the atom wave packet as a metric, we directly probe the velocity distribution and measure the temperature of a single atom in free fall.
To increase the measured phase of an atom interferometer and improve its sensitivity, researchers attempt to increase the enclosed space-time area using two methods: creating larger separations between the interferometer arms and having longer evolution times. However, increasing the evolution time reduces the bandwidth that can be sampled, whereas decreasing the evolution time worsens the sensitivity. In this paper, we attempt to address this by proposing a setup for high-bandwidth applications, with improved overall sensitivity. This is realized by accelerating and holding the atoms using optical dipole traps. We find that accelerations of up to 103–105{10}^{3}\text{--}{10}^{5}103–105 m/s2{\mathrm{m/s}}^{2}m/s2 can be achieved using acousto-optic deflectors to move the traps. By comparing the sensitivity of our approach to acceleration as a baseline to traditional atom interferometry, we find a substantial improvement to the state of the art. In the limit of appropriate beam and optics stabilization, sensitivities approaching ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}$ (m/s2{\mathrm{m/s}}^{2}m/s2)/Hz\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}Hz​ may be achievable at 1 Hz, while detection at 1 kHz with a sensitivity an order of magnitude better than traditional free-fall atom interferometers is possible with today's systems.
Atom interferometers are quantum mechanical devices sensitive to gravitational and inertial forces, with applications in fundamental physics and inertial sensing in the field. Their performance is currently limited by the interrogation time available to freely falling atoms in Earth’s gravitational field, as well as noise due to mechanical and acoustic vibrations. Our experiment probes gravitational potentials by holding, rather than dropping, atoms. We realize an interrogation time of 20 seconds by suspending the spatially separated atomic wave packets in an optical lattice. This record coherence is enabled by the smooth lattice wave fronts, which are mode-filtered by an optical cavity. This trapped geometry suppresses phase variance due to vibrations by three to four orders of magnitude, overcoming the dominant noise source in atom-interferometric gravimeters. The later part of the talk describes recent progress in characterizing and reducing dephasing of the interferometer. An upgraded optical lattice interferometer experiment is currently being commissioned, with the goal of increased sensitivity to gravity.
Quantum reflection occurs when ultra-cold atoms are incident on a material surface with sufficiently low velocity. The reflecting matter wave can interfere with the incident wave to form a detectable pattern, and this pattern contains information about atom-surface interactions at micrometer scales. We discuss how such an interferometer could be used to probe for anomalous short-range forces that are predicted by some beyond-standard model theories. We compare a simple analytical model for the anomalous phase to numerical solution of both the Schroedinger and Gross-Pitaevskii equations, finding good agreement. With interactions, the phase does depend on the atomic density, which can be a source of noise. We nonetheless predict that under realistic conditions, the reflection technique can reach sensitivities approaching those obtained with macroscopic objects, and significantly improve the limits on anomalous coupling to atoms.
Matter-wave inertial sensing relies on the capability of manipulating the coherent wave nature of matter to build an interferometer and accurately measure a phase difference. Since the massive particle associated to the matter wave senses inertial effects, the interferometer represents an accurate inertial probe. Atom interferometers have benefited from the outstanding developments of laser-cooling techniques and reached accuracies comparable to those of inertial sensors based on optical interferometry. Thanks to their long term stability, they offer a breakthrough advance in accelerometry, gyroscopy and gravimetry, for applications to inertial guidance, geoid determinations, geophysics and metrology. They are also excellent candidates for laboratory-based tests of general relativity that could compete with the current tests using astronomical or macroscopic bodies. For example, they may provide new answers to the question of whether the free fall acceleration of a particle is universal, i.e. independent of its internal composition and quantum properties. We report here the first operation of an airborne quantum inertial sensor. We highlight their promising applications to inertial navigation and Earth observation. We also describe the improvement of the quantum sensor sensitivity in weightlessness, and discuss the possibility to conduct airborne or spaceborne tests of the Universality of Free Fall with quantum objects. We finally describe a matter-wave laser based interferometric gravitational antenna (MIGA). This infrastructure will allow for measuring with unprecedented resolution variations of the Earths gravity and of the strain of space-time allowing for enhancing the capabilities of existing and future gravitational wave detectors.
Cold atom free-fall interferometers now realize state-of-the-art precision inertial sensors, opening perspectives towards embedded devices for applications and fundamental physics tests on earth and in space. The acceleration of gravity can be measured in a stimulated Raman transition interferometer where the acceleration under gravity of a cloud of freely falling atoms is sensed by three Raman pulses allowing to split, reflect and interfere atomic wave packets [1]. The gravimeter developped at SYRTE allows to measure the acceleration of gravity at state-of-the-art performances compared to the best classical absolute gravimeters, with a sensitivity of 2×10−8g over 1s and an exactitude of 5×10−9 g [2]. This exactitude is currently limited by wavefront aberrations of the lasers, sampled by residual transverse trajectories of the molasse-cooled cloud over the free fall. Unbalanced transverse trajectories will also bias the measurement due to Coriolis effect [3]. We will investigate the use of a colder atom source to reduce these systematic effects, by implementing Bose-Einstein condensation of the initial cloud, allowing both better position control and better focusing of our source.