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Engineered atomic states for precision interferometry

Robin Corgier

Published Jan 1, 2019• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Modern physics relies on two distinct fun- damental theories, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Both describe on one hand macroscopic and cosmological phenomena such as gravitational waves and black holes and on the other hand micro- scopic phenomena as superfluidity or the spin of par- ticles. The unification of these two theories remains, so far, an unsolved problem. Interestingly, candidate Quantum Gravity theories predict a violation of the principles of General Relativity at different levels. It is, therefore, of a timely interest to detect violations of these principles and determine at which level they occur.

DOI
10.15488/5152

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Modern physics relies on two distinct fun- damental theories, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Both describe on one hand macroscopic and cosmological phenomena such as gravitational waves and black holes and on the other hand micro- scopic phenomena as superfluidity or the spin of par- ticles. The unification of these two theories remains, so far, an unsolved problem. Interestingly, candidate Quantum Gravity theories predict a violation of the principles of General Relativity at different levels. It is, therefore, of a timely interest to detect violations of these principles and determine at which level they occur.
Einstein's general theory of relativity dominates the science of the very large, including gravity and cosmology. Quantum theory reigns supreme on the scale of atoms and smaller. What is more natural than to try to unify these two theories into a single quantum theory of gravity? Modern theories of gravity, including superstring theory, give quantum properties to space and time. These theories have been inspired by Dirac's principles of beauty and elegance. But Dirac had the advantage of experimental evidence, and modern theories of quantum gravity do not. Moreover, beauty and elegance are subjective – they are a guide to the correct theory, not a guarantee. For any scientific theory, experiment is the final test.
The wave properties of matter in quantum mechanics first postulated by de Broglie in 1923 as well as Einstein’s theory of general relativity have radically changed our perception of the world at the beginning of the twentieth century. While each theory is extremely successful and well tested within its range of validity, a unification of both theories has so far resisted any attempt. However, the advances in precision of modern matter-wave interferometers have paved the way to designing experiments at the interface of gravity and quantum mechanics. Indeed, quantum mechanical devices are on the brink of becoming sensitive enough to challenge predictions of general relativity such as the weak equivalence principle or set bounds on alternative gravitational theories. Reaching sensitivities required for these experiments necessitates a careful assessment of deleterious effects some of which might be atom-atom interactions or the influence of the gravitational potential of the laboratory setup itself. Estimation of the size of such effects calls for refined theoretical tools for the description of light-pulse atom interferometry which is the subject of the present thesis.
Recent developments in quantum theory have focused attention on fundamental questions, in particular on whether it might be necessary to modify quantum mechanics to reconcile quantum gravity and general relativity. This book is based on a conference held in Oxford in the spring of 1984 to discuss quantum gravity. It brings together contributors who examine different aspects of the problem, including the experimental support for quantum mechanics, its strange and apparently paradoxical features, its underlying philosophy, and possible modifications to the theory.
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The theory of general relativity describes macroscopic phenomena driven by the influence of gravity while quantum mechanics brilliantly accounts for microscopic effects. Despite their tremendous individual success, a complete unification of fundamental interactions is missing and remains one of the most challenging and important quests in modern theoretical physics. The spacetime explorer and quantum equivalence principle space test satellite mission, proposed as a medium-size mission within the Cosmic Vision program of the European Space Agency (ESA), aims for testing general relativity with high precision in two experiments by performing a measurement of the gravitational redshift of the Sun and the Moon by comparing terrestrial clocks, and by performing a test of the universality of free fall of matter waves in the gravitational field of Earth comparing the trajectory of two Bose-Einstein condensates of 85Rb and 87Rb. The two ultracold atom clouds are monitored very precisely thanks to techniques of atom interferometry. This allows to reach down to an uncertainty in the Eötvös parameter of at least 2 × 10-15. In this paper, we report about the results of the phase A mission study of the atom interferometer instrument covering the description of the main payload elements, the atomic source concept, and the systematic error sources.