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Frontiers in Optics

Measuring the fine structure constant using multiphoton atom interferometry

Holger Müller, Sheng‐wey Chiow, Sven Herrmann, Steven Chu

Published Jan 1, 2008• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

24-photon Bragg diffraction of matter waves by light pulses increases the splitting between the arms of Ramsey-Borde or Mach-Zehnder atom interferometers, leading to up to 144-fold sensitivity. Simultaneous conjugate interferometers reject noise.
DOI
10.1364/ls.2008.ltub2

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We report on our experiment to measure h/M, the ratio of the Planck constant to the mass of Cs atoms, and thereby the fine‐structure constant. The target accuracy is 1 part per billion or better. We focus on two recent milestones: (i) The first realization of atom interferometers based on light‐pulse beam splitters that transfer the momentum of up to 12 photon pairs, which increases the useful signal (matter wave phase shift) by a factor of 144 compared to the beam splitters used in the best present atom interferometers. Moreover, they lead to a cancellation of important systematic effects. (ii) The first realization of a simultaneous pair of conjugate Ramsey‐Bordé interferometers. In these, the relative sign of the inertial term is reversed so that it can be cancelled. Simultaneous operation means that this holds for a time‐dependent inertial term (vibrations) too, which promises a substantial improvement in the signal to noise ratio.
Bloch oscillations (i.e., coherent acceleration of matter waves by an optical lattice) and Bragg diffraction are integrated into light-pulse atom interferometers with large momentum splitting between the interferometer arms, and hence enhanced sensitivity. Simultaneous acceleration of both arms in the same internal states suppresses systematic effects, and simultaneously running a pair of interferometers suppresses the effect of vibrations. Ramsey-Bordé interferometers using four such Bloch-Bragg-Bloch beam splitters exhibit 15% contrast at 24variant Planck's over 2pik splitting, the largest so far (variant Planck's over 2pik is the photon momentum); single beam splitters achieve 88variant Planck's over 2pik. The prospects for reaching 100 s of variant Planck's over 2pik and applications such as gravitational wave sensors are discussed.