Construction of accelerating wavepackets

H. Esat Kondakci, Ayman F. Abouraddy

We experimentally demonstrate Airy wavepackets accelerating only in the spatio-temporal domain of the localized pulse produced via a two-dimensional pulse shaper. When observed with a slow detector, the Airy wavepacket does not accelerate.

Ido E. Kaminer, Mikael C. Rechtsman, Rivka Bekenstein +2 more

We show that shaping the wavepackets of Dirac particles can alter fundamental relativistic effects such as length contraction and time dilation. For example, shaping decaying particles as self-accelerating Dirac wavepackets extends their lifetime

Mordechai Bixon

Yoshimasa Murayama, Mikio Namiki

Edward Su, Saijun Wu, Mara Goff Prentiss

We demonstrate a standing wave light pulse sequence that places atoms into a superposition of displaced wavepackets with precisely controlled separations that remain constant for times as long as 1 s. The separated wavepackets are subsequently recombined resulting in atom interference patterns that probe energy differences of approximately 10^-34 J, and can provide acceleration measurements that are insensitive to platform vibrations.