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Physical Review Letters

Composite-Light-Pulse Technique for High-Precision Atom Interferometry

Peter Berg, Sven Abend, Gunnar Tackmann, C. Schubert, Enno Giese, Wolfgang P. Schleich, Frank A. Narducci, Wolfgang A. Ertmer, Ernst Maria Rasel

Published Feb 9, 2015• 195 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We realize beam splitters and mirrors for atom waves by employing a sequence of light pulses rather than individual ones. In this way we can tailor atom interferometers with improved sensitivity and accuracy. We demonstrate our method of composite pulses by creating a symmetric matter-wave interferometer which combines the advantages of conventional Bragg- and Raman-type concepts. This feature leads to an interferometer with a high immunity to technical noise allowing us to devise a large-area Sagnac gyroscope yielding a phase shift of 6.5 rad due to the Earth's rotation. With this device we achieve a rotation rate precision of 120 nrad s(-1) Hz(-1/2) and determine the Earth's rotation rate with a relative uncertainty of 1.2%.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.114.063002

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We realize beam splitters and mirrors for atom waves by employing a sequence of light pulses rather than individual ones. In this way we can tailor atom interferometers with improved sensitivity and accuracy. We demonstrate our method of composite pulses by creating a symmetric matter-wave interferometer which combines the advantages of conventional Bragg- and Raman-type concepts. This feature leads to an interferometer with a high immunity to technical noise allowing us to devise a large-area Sagnac gyroscope yielding a phase shift of 6.5 rad due to the Earth's rotation. With this device we achieve a rotation rate precision of 120 nrad s(-1) Hz(-1/2) and determine the Earth's rotation rate with a relative uncertainty of 1.2%.
We report on recent progress on our matter-wave Sagnac interferometer capable of resolving ultra-slow rotations below the μrad s − 1 level with a 1-s measurement time and a repetition rate of 2 Hz. Two Raman interferometers are employed that are susceptible to rotation and acceleration. We demonstrate two read-out schemes exploiting the strict phase correlation of the dual interferometer, the first one locking the interferometer to the mid-fringe position, and the second relying on phase modulation combined with ellipse fitting. In both, the sensitivity to gravity acceleration is employed for controlling the differential interferometer phase without influencing the rotation signal. Furthermore, we discuss errors in the rotation signal arising from atom source instabilities combined with a residual misalignment of the three pulsed light gratings used for atomic diffraction. Monitoring the source position fluctuations allows us to suppress this spurious signal. We achieve stable operation with a sensitivity of 850 nrad s − 1 Hz − 1 / 2 for a 1-s measurement time, and 20 nrad s − 1 after 4000 s of averaging.
We reports improvements to our Sagnac effect matter-wave interferometer gyroscope. This device now has a short-term rotation-rate sensitivity of 6 × 10 -10 rad s -1 over 1 s of integration, which is the best publicly reported value to date. Stimulated Raman transitions are used to coherently manipulate atoms from counterpropagating thermal beams, forming two interferometers with opposite rotation phase shifts, allowing rotation to be distinguished from acceleration and laser arbitrary phase. Furthermore, electronically compensating the rotation-induced Doppler shifts of the Raman lasers allows operation at an effective zero rotation rate, improving sensitivity and facilitating sensitive lock-in detection readout techniques. Long-term stability is promising but not yet fully characterized. Potential applications include inertial navigation, geophysical studies and tests of general relativity.
The sensitivity of light and matter-wave interferometers to rotations is based on the Sagnac effect and increases with the area enclosed by the interferometer. In the case of light, the latter can be enlarged by forming multiple fibre loops, whereas the equivalent for matter-wave interferometers remains an experimental challenge. We present a concept for a multi-loop atom interferometer with a scalable area formed by light pulses. Our method will offer sensitivities as high as [Formula: see text] rad/s at 1 s in combination with the respective long-term stability as required for Earth rotation monitoring.
A rotation-rate sensor was developed using atom interferometry and the Sagnac effect for matter waves. This device has a short-term sensitivity of 6× 10−10 rad/sec for a 1 second integration time, which is the best publicly reported value to date. It has high intrinsic accuracy because it relies on interactions between atoms and laser light that is stabilized to an atomic transition. Long-term stability is promising and characterization is currently underway. Potential applications include inertial navigation, geophysical studies, and general relativity tests such as verification of the Lense-Thirring and geodetic effects. The principle of operation is as follows: A thermal cesium atomic beam crosses three laser interaction regions where two-photon stimulated Raman transitions between cesium ground states transfer momentum to atoms and divide, deflect, and recombine the atomic wavepackets. Rotation induces a phase shift between the two possible trajectories and causes a change in the detected number of atoms with a particular internal state. Counterpropagating atomic beams form two interferometers using shared lasers for common-mode rejection, and the rotation phase shifts have opposite sign since the phase shift is proportional to the vector velocity of the atoms. Therefore, subtracting or adding the interferometer signals discriminates between rotation and transverse acceleration summed with laser arbitrary phase. Furthermore, in the inertial reference frame of the atoms, rotations Doppler-shift the Raman lasers. Adding Raman frequency shifts to cancel these Doppler-shifts allows operation at an effective zero rotation rate, improving sensitivity and bandwidth. Modulating these frequency shifts facilitates sensitive lock-in detection readout techniques.
Light pulses have proven to be a powerful and versatile tool to implement beam splitters and mirrors for matter waves enabling atom interferometers. However, for high-precision measurements with such devices the specific realization is crucial and novel techniques might increase the sensitivity. To illustrate the diversity of light-pulse beam splitting and the subtle differences between the diffraction mechanisms, we study atomic Raman, Bragg, and the new method of double Bragg diffraction in a coherent way. Moreover, we introduce a versatile formalism to determine the interference signal of a Mach-Zehnder geometry and give an interpretation in terms of proper-time difference. In addition, we explore the feasibility of a specular mirror for atoms, which might lead to an interferometer testing the equivalence principle.
We report improvements to our atom-interferometer based Sagnac gyroscope which uses stimulated Raman transitions to manipulate atomic wavepackets of cesium atoms. Using counter-propagating high-flux atomic beams, we form two interferometers with opposite Sagnac phase shifts that share key components such as Raman atomic state manipulation beams. Subtracting the two interferometer signals allows the common-mode rejection of spurious noise sources and various systematic effects. Preliminary results indicate a short term sensitivity of 3 X 10-9 (rad/s) (root) Hz.