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Frontiers in Optics

Lattice Atom Interferometry in an Optical Cavity

Victoria Xu

Published Jan 1, 2021• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We present an intra-cavity trapped atom interferometer with an unprecedented 20-second coherence time, and discuss how this approach suppresses vibration noise while increasing sensitivity in a compact volume, overcoming the major limitations in quantum gravimetry.
DOI
10.1364/ls.2021.lm3f.3

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Atom interferometers are quantum mechanical devices sensitive to gravitational and inertial forces, with applications in fundamental physics and inertial sensing in the field. Their performance is currently limited by the interrogation time available to freely falling atoms in Earth’s gravitational field, as well as noise due to mechanical and acoustic vibrations. Our experiment probes gravitational potentials by holding, rather than dropping, atoms. We realize an interrogation time of 20 seconds by suspending the spatially separated atomic wave packets in an optical lattice. This record coherence is enabled by the smooth lattice wave fronts, which are mode-filtered by an optical cavity. This trapped geometry suppresses phase variance due to vibrations by three to four orders of magnitude, overcoming the dominant noise source in atom-interferometric gravimeters. The later part of the talk describes recent progress in characterizing and reducing dephasing of the interferometer. An upgraded optical lattice interferometer experiment is currently being commissioned, with the goal of increased sensitivity to gravity.
Atom interferometry has proven both a powerful means for probing fundamental physics, and a promising technology for high-precision inertial sensing. However, their performance has been limited by the available interrogation time of atoms falling freely in Earth's gravitational field. Trapped geometries have thus been explored as a means to improve the sensitivity of atom interferometers, but attempts to date have suffered from decoherence caused by trap inhomogeneities. We have demonstrated a trapped atom interferometer with an unprecedented interrogation time of 20 seconds,1 achieved by trapping the interferometer in the resonant mode of an optical cavity. The cavity is instrumental to this advance, as it provides spatial mode filtering for the trapping potential. Because the interferometer is held with the arms vertically separated along the gravitational axis, a phase shift accumulates due to the gravitational potential energy difference between the arms. Moreover, this phase accumulates continuously during the hold time, providing an orders-of-magnitude greater immunity to vibrations than previous atom-interferometric gravimeters at the same sensitivity.
Precision interferometry with atomic wavepackets confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice is an emergent paradigm in quantum sensing of forces and fields, with applications in gravimetry, accelerometry, geophysics, and fundamental physics tests. We report on the realization of a lattice-trapped interferometer where the two arms are sourced from a weakly-interacting ytterbium Bose-Einstein condensate, coherently split and trapped by pulsed optical standing waves before recombination. We directly observe atomic interactions through contrast changes and phase shifts of the interferometer. By changing either the atom number or the sample volume to vary the density, we demonstrate control over interactions and optimize interferometer performance. Our observations are effectively captured by a mean-field theoretical model of the system. This work experimentally probes the boundary where improved performance from source brightening through higher phase space density transitions into a regime beyond single-atom physics in lattice-trapped atom interferometry, and opens a door to incorporating many-body effects for metrological advances in such platforms.
Atom interferometers are powerful tools for both measurements in fundamental physics and inertial sensing applications. Their performance, however, has been limited by the available interrogation time of freely falling atoms in a gravitational field. By suspending the spatially separated atomic wave packets in a lattice formed by the mode of an optical cavity, we realize an interrogation time of 20 seconds. Our approach allows gravitational potentials to be measured by holding, rather than dropping, atoms. After seconds of hold time, gravitational potential energy differences from as little as micrometers of vertical separation generate megaradians of interferometer phase. This trapped geometry suppresses the phase variance due to vibrations by three to four orders of magnitude, overcoming the dominant noise source in atom-interferometric gravimeters.
We propose and demonstrate a new scheme for atom interferometry, using light pulses inside an optical cavity as matter wave beam splitters. The cavity provides power enhancement, spatial filtering, and a precise beam geometry, enabling new techniques such as low power beam splitters (<100 μW), large momentum transfer beam splitters with modest power, or new self-aligned interferometer geometries utilizing the transverse modes of the optical cavity. As a first demonstration, we obtain Ramsey-Raman fringes with >75% contrast and measure the acceleration due to gravity, g, to 60 μg/sqrt[Hz] resolution in a Mach-Zehnder geometry. We use >10(7) cesium atoms in the compact mode volume (600 μm 1/e(2) waist) of the cavity and show trapping of atoms in higher transverse modes. This work paves the way toward compact, high sensitivity, multiaxis interferometry.