Atom interferometry in an optical cavity

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a new scheme for atom interferometry, using light pulses inside an optical cavity as matter wave beamsplitters. The cavity provides power enhancement, spatial filtering, and a precise beam geometry, enabling new techniques such as low power beamsplitters ($<100\mu \mathrm{W}$), large momentum transfer beamsplitters 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 $60\mu g/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ resolution in a Mach-Zehnder geometry. We use $>10^7$ cesium atoms in the compact mode volume ($600\mu \mathrm{m}$ $1/e^2$ waist) of the cavity and show trapping of atoms in higher transverse modes. This work paves the way toward compact, high sensitivity, multi-axis interferometry.

5 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
• New determination of the fine structure constant and test of the quantum electrodynamics
• An Atomic Gravitational Wave Interferometric Sensor (AGIS)
• Quantum Test of the Universality of Free Fall
• Atom Interferometry with up to 24-Photon-Momentum-Transfer Beam Splitters
• Atom-wave diffraction between the Raman-Nath and the Bragg regime: Effective Rabi frequency, losses, and phase shifts
• Noise-Immune Conjugate Large-Area Atom Interferometers

Cited by in corpus (5)

• A trapped atom interferometer with ultracold Sr atoms
• Improving the phase response of an atom interferometer by means of temporal pulse shaping
• Fundamental Limitations of Cavity-assisted Atom Interferometry
• Spatially Homogeneous Entanglement for Matter-Wave Interferometry Created with Time-Averaged Measurements
• Generating Entanglement between Atomic Spins with Low-Noise Probing of an Optical Cavity