Differential atom interferometry beyond the standard quantum limit (10 pages)

Franck Pereira dos Santos

Christian Groß

K. Eckert, P. Hyllus, Dagmar Bruß +6 more

We analyze methods designed to go beyond the standard quantum limit for a class of atomic interferometers, where the quantity of interest is the difference of phase shifts obtained by two independent atomic ensembles. An example is given by an atomic Sagnac interferometer, where for two ensembles propagating in opposite directions in the interferometer this phase difference encodes the angular velocity of the experimental setup. We discuss methods of separately or jointly squeezing observables of the two atomic ensembles, and compare in detail the advantages and drawbacks of such schemes. In particular, we show that the method of joint squeezing may improve the variance by up to a factor of 2. We take into account fluctuations of the number of atoms in both the preparation and the measurement stage, and obtain bounds on the difference between the numbers of atoms in the two ensembles, as well as on the detection efficiency, which have to be fulfilled in order to surpass the standard quantum limit. Under realistic conditions, the performance of both schemes can be improved significantly by reading out the phase difference via a quantum nondemolition measurement. Finally, we discuss a scheme using macroscopically entangled ensembles.

Herman C. W. Beijerinck, K. A. H. van Leeuwen

Liam Paul McGuinness

In their paper "Entanglement-enhanced matter-wave interferometry in a high-finesse cavity" Nature (2022), Greve et. al. claim to use entanglement in a matter-wave interferometer to achieve a sensitivity beyond that achievable with the same number of independent particles -- a limit known as the standard quantum limit (SQL). In particular, using squeezed momentum states of 700 atoms, the authors claim to directly observe a sensitivity 3.4 dB (a factor of 1.5) below the SQL. This claim is incorrect. The authors do not measure anything beyond the SQL, nor do they achieve a sensitivity beyond what one could obtain with a single atom. The achieved sensitivity is at least a factor of 39 worse than the claimed value.

Robin Corgier, Marco Malitesta, Augusto Smerzi +1 more

Thanks to common-mode noise rejection, differential configurations are crucial for realistic applications of phase and frequency estimation with atom interferometers. Currently, differential protocols with uncorrelated particles and mode-separable settings reach a sensitivity bounded by the standard quantum limit (SQL). Here we show that differential interferometry can be understood as a distributed multiparameter estimation problem and can benefit from both mode and particle entanglement. Our protocol uses a single spin-squeezed state that is mode-swapped among common interferometric modes. The mode swapping is optimized to estimate the differential phase shift with sub-SQL sensitivity. Numerical calculations are supported by analytical approximations that guide the optimization of the protocol. The scheme is also tested with simulation of noise in atomic clocks and interferometers.