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Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements

A Preliminary Measurement of h/mRb using Ultracold Atoms

Pierre Cladé, Rémy Battesti, Saïda Guellati-Khélifa, Catherine Schwob, Benoît Grémaud, F. Nez, Lucile Julien, F. Biraben

Published Jun 1, 2004• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We use Bloch oscillations in a horizontal and a vertical moving standing wave to transfer a large number of photon recoils to atoms. By measuring the photon recoil of87Rb using velocity selective Raman transitions to select a subrecoil velocity class and to measure the final accelerated velocity class, we have determined h/mRbwith a relative precision of 0.4 ppm

DOI
10.1109/cpem.2004.305318

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Bloch Oscillations of Ultracold Atoms: A Tool for a Metrological Determination of h/mRb

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An obvious determination of the local acceleration of gravity g can be deduced from the measurement of the velocity of falling atoms using a π-π pulses sequence of stimulated Raman transitions. By using a vertical standing wave to hold atoms against gravity, we expect to improve the relative accuracy by increasing the upholding time in the gravity field and to minimize the systematic errors induced by inhomogeneous fields, owing to the very small spatial amplitude of the atomic center-of-mass wavepacket periodic motion. We also propose to use such an experimental setup nearby a Watt balance. By exploiting the g / h ( h is the Planck constant) dependence of the Bloch frequency, this should provide a way to link a macroscopic mass to an atomic mass.

arXiv:physics/0506225•Europhysics Letters (EPL)•Aug 4, 2005•64 citations
We use Bloch oscillations in a horizontal and a vertical moving standing wave to transfer a large number of photon recoils to atoms. By measuring the photon recoil of87Rb using velocity selective Raman transitions to select a subrecoil velocity class and to measure the final accelerated velocity class, we have determined h/mRbwith a relative precision of 0.4 ppm
We use Bloch oscillations in a horizontal moving standing wave to transfer a large number of photon recoils to atoms with a high efficiency (99.5% per cycle). By measuring the photon recoil of 87Rb, using velocity-selective Raman transitions to select a subrecoil velocity class and to measure the final accelerated velocity class, we have determined h/m(Rb) with a relative precision of 0.4 ppm. To exploit the high momentum transfer efficiency of our method, we are developing a vertical standing wave setup. This will allow us to measure h/m(Rb) better than 10(-8) and hence the fine structure constant alpha with an uncertainty close to the most accurate value coming from the (g-2) determination.
We show that Bloch oscillations of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice are a strong tool to measure accurately some physical constants. We describe in this paper two experimental approaches using a pure and an accelerated vertical standing waves to perform respectively a determination of the local acceleration of gravity ggg to ppm precision and of the fine structure constant α\alphaα with a relative uncertainty of 6,7 ppb.
In Paris, we are using an atom interferometer to precisely measure the recoil velocity of an atom that absorbs a photon. In order to reach a high sensitivity, many recoils are transferred to atoms using the Bloch oscillations technique. In this lecture, I will present in details this technique and its application to high precision measurement. I will especially describe in details how this method allows us to perform an atom recoil measurement at the level of 1.3×10−91.3 \times 10^{-9}1.3×10−9. This measurement is used in the most precise determination of the fine structure constant that is independent of quantum electrodynamics.
An obvious determination of the local acceleration of gravity g can be deduced from the measurement of the velocity of falling atoms using a π-π pulses sequence of stimulated Raman transitions. By using a vertical standing wave to hold atoms against gravity, we expect to improve the relative accuracy by increasing the upholding time in the gravity field and to minimize the systematic errors induced by inhomogeneous fields, owing to the very small spatial amplitude of the atomic center-of-mass wavepacket periodic motion. We also propose to use such an experimental setup nearby a Watt balance. By exploiting the g / h ( h is the Planck constant) dependence of the Bloch frequency, this should provide a way to link a macroscopic mass to an atomic mass.