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Physical Review A

Dephasing due to atom-atom interaction in a waveguide interferometer using a Bose-Einstein condensate

Munekazu Horikoshi, Ken’ichi Nakagawa

Published Sep 13, 2006• 44 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A Mach-Zehnder-type atom interferometer with a Bose-Einstein condensate has been investigated on an atom chip by using optical Bragg diffraction. A phase shift and a contrast degradation, which depend on the atomic density and the trapping frequency of the magnetic-guide potential, have been observed. Also, the output wave packets were found to exhibit a spatial interference pattern. The atom-atom interaction and the guide potential induce the spatially inhomogeneous phase evolution of the wave packets in each arm of the interferometer. The observed contrast degradation can be quantitatively explained as a dephasing due to this inhomogeneous phase evolution.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.74.031602

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•Apr 24, 2012•0 citations
A Mach-Zehnder-type atom interferometer with a Bose-Einstein condensate has been investigated on an atom chip by using optical Bragg diffraction. A phase shift and a contrast degradation, which depend on the atomic density and the trapping frequency of the magnetic-guide potential, have been observed. Also, the output wave packets were found to exhibit a spatial interference pattern. The atom-atom interaction and the guide potential induce the spatially inhomogeneous phase evolution of the wave packets in each arm of the interferometer. The observed contrast degradation can be quantitatively explained as a dephasing due to this inhomogeneous phase evolution.
We propose and demonstrate a novel trapped-condensate interferometer using optical Bragg diffractions in a harmonic magnetic potential, which can realize a long coherence time with low dephasing. Dephasing of wave packets due to the magnetic potential is canceled by setting the interrogation time equal to the oscillation period of the harmonic potential. The harmonic potential also helps to suppress dephasing due to condensate atom-atom interactions. An interference signal with a fringe contrast of 30% is observed at an interrogation time of 58 ms. For a longer interrogation time about 100 ms, the spatial coherence of the condensate is still maintained with low dephasing, although the interference fringe is washed out by external vibrational noise.
An atom Michelson interferometer is implemented on an "atom chip." The chip uses lithographically patterned conductors and external magnetic fields to produce and guide a Bose-Einstein condensate. Splitting, reflecting, and recombining of condensate atoms are achieved by a standing-wave light field having a wave vector aligned along the atom waveguide. A differential phase shift between the two arms of the interferometer is introduced by either a magnetic-field gradient or with an initial condensate velocity. Interference contrast is still observable at 20% with an atom propagation time of 10 ms.
We construct a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using Bose-Einstein condensed rubidium atoms and optical Bragg diffraction. In contrast to interferometers based on normal diffraction, where only a small percentage of the atoms contribute to the signal, our Bragg diffraction interferometer uses all the condensate atoms. The condensate coherence properties and high phase-space density result in an interference pattern of nearly 100% contrast. The two arms of the interferometer may be completely separated in space, making it an ideal tool that can be used to detect vortices or other topological condensate phases.
We have demonstrated a novel atom interferometer which uses a free oscillation of 87Rb BEC atoms in a magnetic harmonic potential on an atom chip. This interferometer can effectively suppress the dephasing due to the trap potential by applying two Bragg laser pulses with an time interval T equal to the oscillation period of the axial mode of the magnetic trap. We observed a high contrast (~30 %) interference fringe signal for T = 58 ms. When we increased the time interval T to 97 ms, an interference fringe was washed out by the random phase fluctuation. We attributed this phase fluctuation to the external vibrational noise from the floor.
An atom interferometer is a sensitive device that has potential for many useful applications. Atoms are sensitive to electromagnetic fields due to their electric and magnetic moments and their mass allows them to be deflected in a gravitational field, thereby making them attractive for measuring inertial forces. The narrow momentum distribution of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a great asset in realizing portable atom interferometers. An example is a guided-wave atom interferometer that uses a confining potential to guide the motion of the condensate. Despite the promise of guided-wave atom interferometry with BEC, spatial phase and phase diffusion limit the contrast of the interference fringes. The control of these phases is required for successful development of a BEC-based guided-wave atom interferometer. This thesis analyses the guided-wave atom interferometer, where an atomic BEC cloud at the center of a confining potential is split into two clouds that move along different arms of the interferometer. The clouds accumulate relative phase due to the environment, spatially inhomogeneous trapping potential and atom-atom interactions within the condensate. At the end of the interferometric cycle, the clouds are recombined producing a cloud at rest and moving clouds. The number of atoms in the clouds that emerge depends on the relative phase accumulated by the clouds during propagation. This is investigated by deriving an expression for the probability of finding any given number of atoms in the clouds that emerge after recombination. Characteristic features like mean, standard deviation and cross-correlation function of the probability density distribution are calculated and the contrast of the interference fringes is optimized. This thesis found that optimum contrast is achieved through the control of total population of atoms in the condensate, trap frequencies, s-wave scattering length, and the duration of the interferometric cycle.