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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Collapse and revival of the fringe pattern in a multiple-beam atom interferometer

Martin Weitz, Tobias Heupel, Theodor W. Hänsch

Published Mar 10, 1997• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on the observation of collapse and revival of the fringe pattern in a multiple-beam atom interferometer, when the drift time between the beam splitting processes is varied. The atomic beam splitters are realized with laser pulses pumping the atoms into velocity selective dark states. For small drift times, the interference signal shows the sharply peaked Airy function-like pattern characteristic for multiple-beam interference. The fringe pattern collapses for larger drift times due to a recoil phase shift increasing quadratically with the transverse atomic momentum. When the total interaction time reaches an integer multiple of the inverse two-photon recoil energy in frequency units, the original fringe pattern is revived.

DOI
10.1209/epl/i1997-00184-7

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We report on the observation of collapse and revival of the fringe pattern in a multiple-beam atom interferometer, when the drift time between the beam splitting processes is varied. The atomic beam splitters are realized with laser pulses pumping the atoms into velocity selective dark states. For small drift times, the interference signal shows the sharply peaked Airy function-like pattern characteristic for multiple-beam interference. The fringe pattern collapses for larger drift times due to a recoil phase shift increasing quadratically with the transverse atomic momentum. When the total interaction time reaches an integer multiple of the inverse two-photon recoil energy in frequency units, the original fringe pattern is revived.
We report on the demonstration of a multiple beam atom interferometer. While in conventional two-beam atom interferometers a sinusoidal fringe pattern is observed, the fringe pattern measured here resembles the more sharply peaked Airy function known, e.g., from an optical Fabry–Perot resonator. This technique promises to yield an increased precision in atom inter-ferometric measurements of, e.g., rotation or gravitation, since the obtained interference fringes are sharper than those of the corresponding two-beam atom interferometer.
An atom interferometer based on Doppler-insensitive Raman transition is proposed, which has sharply peaked interference fringes for multi-wave interference. We show that two sets of counter-propagating Doppler-insensitive Raman beam pairs can be used to construct a new type of multi-wave beam splitter, which can be used to construct an atom interferometer. Although the spacing between adjacent diffraction orders of the interferometer is small, they can be distinguished by the internal state of the atom. Our analysis shows that the width of the fringes of this atom interferometer is inversely proportional to the width (duration) of the beam splitter and the Rabi frequency of the Raman beams, that is, the interferometer can achieve high resolution at high light intensity and long pulse width.
We report here on the realization of light-pulse atom interferometers with large-momentum-transfer atom optics based on a sequence of Bragg transitions. We demonstrate momentum splitting up to 200 photon recoils in an ultracold atom interferometer. We highlight a new mechanism of destructive interference of the losses leading to a sizable efficiency enhancement of the beam splitters. We perform a comprehensive study of parasitic interferometers due to the inherent multiport feature of the quasi-Bragg pulses. Finally, we experimentally verify the phase shift enhancement and characterize the interferometer visibility loss.
Summary form only given. The field of atom interferometry is experiencing rapid progress. Atom interferometers have been used to determine topological phase shifts such as the Aharonov-Bohm or Aharonov-Casher effects. Both two beam and more recently multiple beam atom interferometers have been realized. We report on an investigation of the electric (or scalar) Aharonov-Bohm effect in a multiple beam Ramsey experiment. The topological phase shift leads to collapse and revival of the fringe pattern. In a first interaction region cesium atoms are optically pumped into a dark coherent superposition of the magnetic quantum numbers m/sub F/=-4, -2, 0, 2 and 4 of the 6S/sub 1/2/ (F=4) ground state. The coherent superposition is probed after a time T in a second interaction region. When the atoms are irradiated in between the Ramsey interactions by an additional linearly polarized light field 400 MHz blue detuned to the F=4/spl rarr/F'=4 transition of the cesium D1 line, the induced AC Stark shift increases quadratically with the magnetic quantum number. The laser field coupling to the induced atomic dipole moment causes-in the absence of any classical forces-an electric Aharonov-Bohm phase shift.