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Physical Review Letters

Atom Interferometry with Rb Blue Transitions

Leonardo Salvi, L. Cacciapuoti, Guglielmo Maria Tino, G. Rosi

Published Sep 5, 2023• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel scheme for Raman-pulse and Bragg-pulse atom interferometry based on the 5S-6P blue transitions of $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ that provides an increase by a factor $\ensuremath{\sim}2$ of the interferometer phase due to accelerations with respect to the commonly used infrared transition at 780 nm. A narrow-linewidth laser system generating more than 1 W of light in the 420--422 nm range was developed for this purpose. Used as a cold-atom gravity gradiometer, our Raman interferometer attains a stability to differential acceleration measurements of $1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }g$ at 1 s and $2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}10}\text{ }\text{ }g$ after 2000 s of integration time. When operated on first-order Bragg transitions, the interferometer shows a stability of $6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }g$ at 1 s, averaging to $1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}\text{ }\text{ }g$ after 2000 s of integration time. The instrument sensitivity, currently limited by the noise due to spontaneous emission, can be further improved by increasing the laser power and the detuning from the atomic resonance. The present scheme is attractive for high-precision experiments as, in particular, for the determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.131.103401

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We demonstrate a novel scheme for Raman-pulse and Bragg-pulse atom interferometry based on the 5S-6P blue transitions of 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb that provides an increase by a factor \ensuremath∼2\ensuremath{\sim}2\ensuremath∼2 of the interferometer phase due to accelerations with respect to the commonly used infrared transition at 780 nm. A narrow-linewidth laser system generating more than 1 W of light in the 420--422 nm range was developed for this purpose. Used as a cold-atom gravity gradiometer, our Raman interferometer attains a stability to differential acceleration measurements of 1\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8  g1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }g1\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8  g at 1 s and 2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−10  g2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}10}\text{ }\text{ }g2\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−10  g after 2000 s of integration time. When operated on first-order Bragg transitions, the interferometer shows a stability of 6\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8  g6\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}\text{ }\text{ }g6\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8  g at 1 s, averaging to 1\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−9  g1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}\text{ }\text{ }g1\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−9  g after 2000 s of integration time. The instrument sensitivity, currently limited by the noise due to spontaneous emission, can be further improved by increasing the laser power and the detuning from the atomic resonance. The present scheme is attractive for high-precision experiments as, in particular, for the determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant.
We demonstrate a novel scheme for Raman-pulse and Bragg-pulse atom interferometry based on the 5S−6P5\mathrm{S} - 6\mathrm{P}5S−6P blue transitions of 87^{87}87Rb that provides an increase by a factor ∼2\sim 2∼2 of the interferometer phase due to accelerations with respect to the commonly used infrared transition at 780 nm. A narrow-linewidth laser system generating more than 1 W of light in the 420-422 nm range was developed for this purpose. Used as a cold-atom gravity gradiometer, our Raman interferometer attains a stability to differential acceleration measurements of 1×10−81\times10^{-8}1×10−8 ggg at 1 s and 2×10−102\times 10^{-10}2×10−10 ggg after 2000 s of integration time. When operated on first-order Bragg transitions, the interferometer shows a stability of 6×10−86\times10^{-8}6×10−8 g at 1 s, averaging to 1×10−91\times10^{-9}1×10−9 g after 2000 s of integration time. The instrument sensitivity, currently limited by the noise due to spontaneous emission, can be further improved by increasing the laser power and the detuning from the atomic resonance. The present scheme is attractive for high-precision experiments as, in particular, for the determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant.
Atom interferometry is a maturing quantum technology which provides one of the most precise approaches to explore fundamental physics, e.g. to search for dark matter, and one day to observe gravitational waves in the frequency range from 10 mHz - 10 Hz. Standard atom interferometers use Bragg or Raman two-photon transitions for the coherent manipulation of matter waves. In a Michelson configuration for atom-aided gravitational waves detection, two orthogonal arms are built to reject laser noise, in the same way as optical interferometers. Atom interferometers utilizing an optical clock transition for coherent manipulation are less affected by the technical noise of the laser, and as a result that single baseline detectors become feasible.At LP2N, we are building a vertical gravity-gradiometer based on atom interferometry using strontium atoms probed on such a clock transition. The final experimental setup will implement a 6-meter tall atomic fountain to realize gradiometry with two or more separated atomic clouds.In my dissertation, I present the realization of the experimental setup in all its sub-systems, and the first experiments with atoms at millikelvin temperature obtained with the first cooling stage with blue light. The laser system for the second red cooling phase and for the coherent manipulation is ready; meanwhile, we realized a dual-frequency Zeeman slower that improves the atomic flux by a factor of six. We also present a study of an original scheme to achieve pulsed and fast light-atom interaction in a narrow-linewidth cavity by exploiting the Stark shift as a high bandwidth switch; this technique could open to the use of narrow-linewidth cavities – and notably their high power buildup - in several contexts, like atom interferometry and quantum information.
We here present a high sensitivity gravity-gradiometer based on atom interferometry. In our apparatus, two clouds of laser-cooled rubidium atoms are launched in fountain configuration and interrogated by a Raman interferometry sequence to probe the gradient of gravity field. We recently implemented a high-flux atomic source and a newly designed Raman lasers system in the instrument set-up. We discuss the applications towards a precise determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant G. The long-term stability of the instrument and the signal-to-noise ratio demonstrated here open interesting perspectives for pushing the measurement precision below the 100 ppm level.
We present a precision gravimeter based on coherent Bragg diffraction of freely falling cold atoms. Traditionally, atomic gravimeters have used stimulated Raman transitions to separate clouds in momentum space by driving transitions between two internal atomic states. Bragg interferometers utilize only a single internal state, and can therefore be less susceptible to environmental perturbations. Here we show that atoms extracted from a magneto-optical trap using an accelerating optical lattice are a suitable source for a Bragg atom interferometer, allowing efficient beamsplitting and subsequent separation of momentum states for detection. Despite the inherently multi-state nature of atom diffraction, we are able to build a Mach–Zehnder interferometer using Bragg scattering which achieves a sensitivity to the gravitational acceleration of Δ g / g = 2.7 × 10 −9 with an integration time of 1000 s. The device can also be converted to a gravity gradiometer by a simple modification of the light pulse sequence.
Cold-atom interferometer based on stimulated Raman transition is interesting for both fundamental researches and precision measurements. Measuring g, the free fall acceleration, plays an important role in these applications. We describe the theory of atom interferometry, including the evolution of the atomic wavepacket in gravity field, the laser-atom interaction, and the interference of the atomic waves. In this article, we introduce the procedure of measuring g using atom interferometer, the experimental setup, and the tendency of the future development. The works of the domestic and international groups for g measurement are concluded. Furthermore, the noise limits and dominant systematic effects in atom gravimeters are analyzed. The suppressions of the background vibration, the Raman phase noise, and the evaluation of the main systematic effects, are introduced. Finally, the other applications using the atom interferometers for precision measurement are presented, such as in measuring the Newton’s gravitational constant, in testing the weak equivalence principle and the other fundamental applications in physics studies.
We describe two experiments where atom interferometry is applied for precision measurements of gravitational effects. In the first, we measure the Newtonian gravitational constant G using an atom interferometry gravity-gradiometer which combines a rubidium fountain, a juggling scheme for fast launch of two atomic clouds, and Raman interferometry. We show that the sensor is able to detect the gravitational field produced by source masses and G is measured with better than 10-2 accuracy. In the second experiment, using ultra-cold strontium atoms in a vertical optical lattice and observing persistent Bloch oscillations for several seconds, we measure gravity acceleration with micromet-ric spatial resolution. We discuss the prospects for the study of gravitational forces at short distances and show that unexplored regions can be investigated in the search for deviations from Newtonian gravity.