An On-Chip Atom Interferometer Using a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Alain Aspect

Stephen R. Segal, Quentin Diot, Eric Cornell +3 more

Chris J. Vale

Ultra-cold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) provide a dramatic example of a quantum system on a macroscopic scale. Atoms can be cooled down to temperatures below 1μK and their de Broglie wavelengths become large enough to be readily observed in experiments. This has spawned a new research area known as atom optics which refers to the study and control of atoms based on their wave nature. In recent years, physicists have been performing experiments with coherent atoms from a Bose-Einstein condensate. The ability to produce and manipulate condensates above microfabricated surfaces may one day lead to new technologies such as atom interferometers on a chip.

Martina Gebbe, Sven Abend, Matthias Gersemann +6 more

宗一 堀越

Gyu-Boong Jo, Jongsoo Choi, Caleb A. Christensen +4 more

The recombination of two split Bose-Einstein condensates on an atom chip is shown to result in heating which depends on the relative phase of the two condensates. This heating reduces the number of condensate atoms between 10% and 40% and provides a robust way to read out the phase of an atom interferometer without the need for ballistic expansion. The heating may be caused by the dissipation of dark solitons created during the merging of the condensates.