Stability enhancement by joint phase measurements in a single cold atomic fountain

Abstract

We propose a method of joint interrogation in a single atom interferometer which overcomes the dead time between consecutive measurements in standard cold atomic fountains. The joint operation enables for a faster averaging of the Dick effect associated with the local oscillator noise in clocks and with vibration noise in cold atom inertial sensors. Such an operation allows achieving the lowest stability limit due to atom shot noise. We demonstrate a multiple joint operation in which up to five clouds of atoms are interrogated simultaneously in a single setup. The essential feature of multiple joint operation, demonstrated here for a micro-wave Ramsey interrogation, can be generalized to go beyond the current stability limit associated with dead times in present-day cold atom interferometer inertial sensors.

4 pages, 4 figures. 2 pages of references and Appendix with 2 figures

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• Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
• 6-axis inertial sensor using cold-atom interferometry
• An Atomic Gravitational Wave Interferometric Sensor (AGIS)
• Stability comparison of two absolute gravimeters: optical versus atomic interferometers
• Improved tests of Local Position Invariance using 87Rb and 133Cs fountains
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Ultra-stable optical clock with two cold-atom ensembles
• The Sagnac effect: 20 years of development in matter-wave interferometry
• Improving the phase response of an atom interferometer by means of temporal pulse shaping
• Dual atomic interferometer with a tunable point of minimum magnetic sensitivity