The coherent population trapping (CPT) effect is used for making compact atomic clocks. There are two types of CPT clocks: the one in which the Raman beams are applied continuously and the one in which two CPT pulses separated by a dark period are applied (Ramsey scheme). It is obvious that the technique of spin squeezing can only be applied to the Ramsey CPT clock to enhance the sensitivity. However, it is not apparent how to adapt to the CPT clock the protocols for the microwave clock using one-axis-twist squeezing (OATS), since the Ramsey CPT clock is not trivially equivalent to the Ramsey microwave clock. In this paper, we show explicitly how to adapt two protocols using OATS, namely, the Schr\"odinger cat state protocol (SCSP) and the generalization thereof, and the echo squeezing protocol (ESP), to the CPT clock. The ESP magnifies the phase shift by a factor of $\sqrt{N/e}$, while the SCSP magnifies the phase shift by a factor of $N/2$, making it able to achieve a higher sensitivity in the presence of excess noise.
The coherent population trapping (CPT) effect is used for making compact atomic clocks. There are two types of CPT clocks: the one in which the Raman beams are applied continuously and the one in which two CPT pulses separated by a dark period are applied (Ramsey scheme). It is obvious that the technique of spin squeezing can only be applied to the Ramsey CPT clock to enhance the sensitivity. However, it is not apparent how to adapt to the CPT clock the protocols for the microwave clock using one-axis-twist squeezing (OATS), since the Ramsey CPT clock is not trivially equivalent to the Ramsey microwave clock. In this paper, we show explicitly how to adapt two protocols using OATS, namely, the Schr"odinger cat state protocol (SCSP) and the generalization thereof, and the echo squeezing protocol (ESP), to the CPT clock. The ESP magnifies the phase shift by a factor of N/e, while the SCSP magnifies the phase shift by a factor of N/2, making it able to achieve a higher sensitivity in the presence of excess noise.
In general, the process of spin squeezing is employed for atomic sensors that are essentially free from the effect of spontaneous emission. In the case of an atomic clock based on coherent population trapping, spontaneous emission plays a key role. Specifically, when the clock is realized in the Ramsey configuration employing a pair of pulses separated in time, it is the spontaneous emission process during the first pulse that creates the coherent population trapping, by optically pumping the atoms into the so-called dark state. We show in this talk that it is still possible to apply the process of spin squeezing to enhance the sensitivity of such a clock, by designing carefully the sequence of steps in the protocol. Specifically, we consider the approach of using the maximally entangled Schroedinger Cat states, produced via one axis twist squeezing, to achieve Heisenberg Limited sensitivity, representing an improvement in sensitivity by as much as four orders of magnitude.
In a conventional atomic interferometer employing N atoms, the phase sensitivity is at the standard quantum limit: 1/N. Using spin-squeezing, the sensitivity can be increased, either by lowering the quantum noise or via phase amplification, or a combination thereof. Here, we show how to increase the sensitivity, to the Heisenberg limit of 1/N, while increasing the quantum noise by N, thereby suppressing by the same factor the effect of excess noise. The protocol uses a Schrodinger Cat state representing a superposition of two collective states of N atoms, behaving as a single entity with an N-fold increase in Compton frequency. The resulting N-fold phase magnification is revealed by using atomic state detection instead of collective state detection. We also show how to realize an atomic clock based on such a Schrodinger Cat state, with an N-fold increase in the effective transition frequency. We discuss potential experimental constraints for implementing this scheme, using one axis twist squeezing employing the cavity feedback scheme, and show that the effects of cavity decay and spontaneous emission are highly suppressed. We find that the maximum improvement in sensitivity can be close to the ideal limit, for as many as ten million atoms.
We propose a two-step pulse observation method to enhance the frequency stability of coherent population trapping (CPT) atomic clocks. The proposed method is a Raman–Ramsey scheme with low light intensity at resonance observation and provides a Ramsey-CPT resonance with both reduced frequency sensitivity to the light intensity and a high signal-to-noise ratio by reducing the repumping into a steady dark state. The resonance characteristics were calculated using density matrix analysis of a Λ-type three-level system that was modeled on the 133 Cs D 1 line, and the characteristics were also measured using a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser and a Cs vapor cell.
The echo squeezing protocols (ESPs) are techniques that amplify the phase shift in a quantum sensor with one-axis-twist squeezing (OATS). For atomic sensors, spontaneous emission (SE) in the OATS operations is an important imperfection, which, however, is prohibitively difficult to study. SE can transfer atoms to all the Zeeman substates, making the number of relevant collective states excessively large. In this paper, we focus on a relatively simple isotope, namely Sr-88, which only has one Zeeman substate in each of the two ground states. Nevertheless, studying the effect of SE is still challenging because SE will populate all collective states, either symmetric or asymmetric, thus putting the ensemble into a mixed state. Based on analytical derivation and numerical simulations, we conclude that the GESP is more resistant to SE than the conventional echo squeezing protocol (CESP). This is another advantage of the GESP that has not been realized formerly. We also find that for the GESP employing Sr-88, the SE-induced reduction in the signal contrast is the same as that for a Ramsey protocol without squeezing and the quantum noise is suppressed by SE. This is an unexpectedly favorable result. The SE-induced suppression of quantum noise constitutes a previously unrecognized effect that challenges both earlier conclusions and intuitive expectations.
Sophisticated Ramsey-based interrogation protocols using composite laser pulse sequences have been recently proposed to provide next-generation high-precision atomic clocks with a near perfect elimination of frequency shifts induced during the atom-probing field interaction. We propose here a simple alternative approach to the autobalanced Ramsey interrogation protocol and demonstrate its application to a cold-atom microwave clock based on coherent population trapping (CPT). The main originality of the method, based on two consecutive Ramsey sequences with different dark periods, is to sample the central Ramsey fringes with frequency jumps finely adjusted by an additional frequency-displacement concomitant parameter, scaling as the inverse of the dark period. The advantage of this displaced frequency-jump Ramsey method is that the local oscillator (LO) frequency is used as a single physical variable to control both servo loops of the sequence, simplifying its implementation and avoiding noise associated with controlling the LO phase. When tested using a CPT cold-atom clock, the DFJR scheme reduces the sensitivity of the clock frequency to variations of the light shifts by more than an order of magnitude compared with the standard Ramsey interrogation. This simple method can be applied in a wide variety of Ramsey-spectroscopy based applications including frequency metrology with CPT-based and optical atomic clocks, mass spectrometry, and precision spectroscopy.
In a conventional atomic interferometer employing N atoms, the phase sensitivity is at the standard quantum limit: 1/N. Using spin-squeezing, the sensitivity can be increased, either by lowering the quantum noise or via phase amplification, or a combination thereof. Here, we show how to increase the sensitivity, to the Heisenberg limit of 1/N, while increasing the quantum noise by N, thereby suppressing by the same factor the effect of excess noise. The protocol uses a Schrodinger Cat state representing a superposition of two collective states of N atoms, behaving as a single entity with an N-fold increase in Compton frequency. The resulting N-fold phase magnification is revealed by using atomic state detection instead of collective state detection. We also show how to realize an atomic clock based on such a Schrodinger Cat state, with an N-fold increase in the effective transition frequency. We discuss potential experimental constraints for implementing this scheme, using one axis twist squeezing employing the cavity feedback scheme, and show that the effects of cavity decay and spontaneous emission are highly suppressed. We find that the maximum improvement in sensitivity can be close to the ideal limit, for as many as ten million atoms.