The Stern-Gerlach effect, found a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. Unexpectedly, until recently, there has been little evidence that the original scheme with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets is a fully coherent quantum process. Several theoretical studies have explained why a Stern-Gerlach interferometer is a formidable challenge. Here, we provide a detailed account of the realization of a full-loop Stern-Gerlach interferometer for single atoms and use the acquired understanding to show how this setup may be used to realize an interferometer for macroscopic objects doped with a single spin. Such a realization would open the door to a new era of fundamental probes, including the realization of previously inaccessible tests at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity.
The Stern-Gerlach effect, found a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. Unexpectedly, until recently, there has been little evidence that the original scheme with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets is a fully coherent quantum process. Several theoretical studies have explained why a Stern-Gerlach interferometer is a formidable challenge. Here, we provide a detailed account of the realization of a full-loop Stern-Gerlach interferometer for single atoms and use the acquired understanding to show how this setup may be used to realize an interferometer for macroscopic objects doped with a single spin. Such a realization would open the door to a new era of fundamental probes, including the realization of previously inaccessible tests at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity.
The Stern-Gerlach effect, found a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. Unexpectedly, until recently, there has been little evidence that the original scheme with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets is a fully coherent quantum process. Several theoretical studies have explained why a Stern-Gerlach interferometer is a formidable challenge. Here, we provide a detailed account of the realization of a full-loop Stern-Gerlach interferometer for single atoms and use the acquired understanding to show how this setup may be used to realize an interferometer for macroscopic objects doped with a single spin. Such a realization would open the door to a new era of fundamental probes, including the realization of previously inaccessible tests at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity.
Abstract In this invited review in honor of 100 years since the Stern-Gerlach (SG) experiments, we describe a decade of SG interferometry on the atom chip. The SG effect has been a paradigm of quantum mechanics throughout the last century, but there has been surprisingly little evidence that the original scheme, with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets, is a fully coherent quantum process. Specifically, no full-loop SG interferometer (SGI) has been realized with the scheme as envisioned decades ago. Furthermore, several theoretical studies have explained why it is a formidable challenge. Here we provide a review of our SG experiments over the last decade. We describe several novel configurations such as that giving rise to the first SG spatial interference fringes, and the first full-loop SGI realization. These devices are based on highly accurate magnetic fields, originating from an atom chip, that ensure coherent operation within strict constraints described by previous theoretical analyses. Achieving this high level of control over magnetic gradients is expected to facilitate technological applications such as probing of surfaces and currents, as well as metrology. Fundamental applications include the probing of the foundations of quantum theory, gravity, and the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. We end with an outlook describing possible future experiments.
The Stern-Gerlach (SG) effect, discovered almost a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. Surprisingly there is little evidence that the original scheme with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets is a fully coherent quantum process. Specifically, no high-visibility spatial interference pattern has been observed with such a scheme, and furthermore no full-loop SG interferometer has been realized with the scheme as envisioned decades ago. On the contrary, numerous theoretical studies explained why it is a near impossible endeavor. Here we demonstrate for the first time both a high-visibility spatial SG interference pattern and a full-loop SG interferometer, based on an accurate magnetic field, originating from an atom chip, that ensures coherent operation within strict constraints described by previous theoretical analyses. This also allows us to observe the gradual emergence of time-irreversibility as the splitting is increased. Finally, achieving this high level of control over magnetic gradients may facilitate technological applications such as large-momentum-transfer beam splitting for metrology with atom interferometry, ultra-sensitive probing of electron transport down to shot-noise and squeezed currents, as well as nuclear magnetic resonance and compact accelerators.
It is almost exactly 100 years since De-Broglie made public his outrageous hypothesis regarding Wave-Particle Duality (WPD), where the latter plays a key role in interferometry. In parallel, the Stern-Gerlach (SG) effect, observed also a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. I will describe the realization of a half- and full-loop SG interferometer for single atoms, and show how WPD, or complementarity, manifests itself. I will then use the acquired understanding to show how this setup may be used to realize an interferometer for macroscopic objects doped with a single spin, namely, to show that even rocks may reveal themselves as waves. I emphasize decoherence channels which are unique to macroscopic objects such as those relating to phonons and rotation. These must be addressed in such a challenging experiment. The realization of such an experiment could open the door to a new era of fundamental probes, including the realization of previously inaccessible tests of the foundations of quantum theory and the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity, including the probing of exotic theories such as the Diosi-Penrose gravitationally induced collapse. Time permitting, and as an anecdote noting also De-Broglie's less popular assertion, namely, that the standard description of QM is lacking, I will also present our recent work on Bohmian mechanics, which is an extension of De-Broglie's ideas concerning the pilot wave.
Stern-Gerlach and/or matter-wave interferometry has garnered significant interest amongst members of the scientific community over the past few decades. Early theoretical results by Schwinger et al. demonstrate the fantastic precision capabilities required to realize a full-loop Stern-Gerlach interferometer, i.e., a Stern-Gerlach setup that houses the capability of recombining the split wave-packets in both, position and momentum space over a certain characteristic interferometric time. Over the years, several proposals have been put forward that seek to use Stern-Gerlach and/or matter-wave interferometry as a tool for a myriad of applications of general interest, some of which include tests for fundamental physics (viz., quantum wave-function collapse, stringent tests for the Einstein equivalence principle at the quantum scale, breaking the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) barrier, and so forth), precision sensing, quantum metrology, gravitational wave detection and inertial navigation. In addition, a large volume of work in the existing literature has been dedicated to the possibility of using matter-wave interferometry for tests of quantum gravity. Inspired by the developments in this timely research field, this Perspective attempts to provide a general overview of the theory involved, the challenges that are yet to be addressed and a brief outlook on what lays ahead.
Probing quantum mechanics and quantum aspects of general relativity, along with the sensing and constraining of classical gravity, can all be enabled by unprecedented spatial sizes of superpositions of massive objects. In this paper, we show that there is a feasible setup sourced by realizable magnetic field gradients O(10–100)T ${\mathrm{m}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ to construct a large spatial superposition of $O({10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}\text{--}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8})\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{m}$ for $O({10}^{\ensuremath{-}17}\text{--}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}14})\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{kg}$ masses within a time of up to 0.1--10 seconds. The scale of superpositions is unrestricted as long as quantum coherence can be maintained for a required amount of time.