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Physical Review A

Fractional adiabatic passage in two-level systems: Mirrors and beam splitters for atomic interferometry

James Bateman, Tim Freegarde

Published Jul 24, 2007• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Atom interferometers require atom mirrors and beam splitters that can maintain high fidelity even when experimental parameters vary from the ideal. We address the use of chirped laser pulses to provide such elements via rapid adiabatic passage, and present a prescription for practical pulses that offer controlled adiabaticity throughout. Full- and half-adiabatic pulses, providing mirrors and beam splitters, respectively, are derived, and the latter examined for robustness and suitability for experimental implementations.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.76.013416

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We present designs for the augmentation ``mirror'' pulses of large-momentum-transfer atom interferometers that maintain their fidelity as the wave-packet momentum difference is increased. These biselective pulses, tailored using optimal control methods to the evolving bimodal momentum distribution, should allow greater interferometer areas and hence increased inertial measurement sensitivity, without requiring elevated Rabi frequencies or extended frequency chirps. Using an experimentally validated model, we have simulated the application of our pulse designs to large-momentum-transfer atom interferometry using stimulated Raman transitions in a laser-cooled atomic sample of 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb at 1 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$. After the wave packets have separated by 42 photon recoil momenta, our pulses maintain a fringe contrast of 90%, whereas, for adiabatic rapid passage and conventional $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses, the contrast is less than 10%. Furthermore, we show how these pulses may be adapted to be robust to laser intensity variations between pulses and to suppress the detrimental off-resonant excitation that limits other broadband pulse schemes.
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We study atomic-beam deflection by adiabatic passage between Zeeman ground levels via Raman transitions induced by counterpropagating ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\sigma}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$-polarized lasers. We show that complete population transfer between the ground states can be achieved, which corresponds to the scattering of the atomic wave packet into a single final momentum state by absorption and induced emission of laser photons. Although the lasers can be resonant, the excited state(s) are never populated during the adiabatic transfer, which suppresses the effects of spontaneous emission and preserves the coherence of the atomic wave function. This scheme has attractive features as a beam splitter and mirror for atomic interferometry.
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