Nonadiabatic effects in the operation of a of a cold atom accelerometer

Peter D. D. Schwindt

Frank A. Narducci

Michael Manicchia, Jeff Lee, George R. Welch +1 more

J. Y. Vaishnav, E. J. Heller

James Stickney, Alex A. Zozulya

We analyze operation of a cold-atom accelerometer, an interferometric device which measures linear accelerations. We develop an analytic model that predicts a decrease in the visibility of the interference fringes and also their shift caused by the acceleration of the device. This effect places an upper limit on the maximum value of acceleration that can be measured for given parameters of the confining potential and the measurement cycle time.

Soizic Hello, Alexandre Mersch, B. Wirtschafter +3 more

We present an on-chip cold atom inertial sensor based on a Ramsey sequence configured to measure acceleration. Cold atom interferometers are of great interest due to their excellent stability and sensitivity to inertial effects. Atom chips enable a drastic size reduction of the sensor by trapping atoms during the whole measurement. During the interferometry sequence, we create a superposition of two atomic states and spatially split them, rendering the device sensitive to acceleration. We give the current noise budget at Allan deviation first point for our on-chip accelerometer.