Multi-frequency perturbations in matter-wave interferometry

Abstract

High contrast matter-wave interferometry is essential in various fundamental quantum mechanical experiments as well as for technical applications. Thereby, contrast and sensitivity are typically reduced by decoherence and dephasing effects. While decoherence accounts for a general loss of quantum information in a system due to entanglement with the environment, dephasing is due to collective time-dependent external phase shifts, which can be related to temperature drifts, mechanical vibrations or electromagnetic oscillations. In contrast to decoherence, dephasing can in principle be reversed. Here, we demonstrate in experiment and theory a method for the analysis and reduction of the influence of dephasing noise and perturbations consisting of several external frequencies in an electron interferometer. This technique uses the high spatial and temporal resolution of a delay line detector to reveal and remove dephasing perturbations by second order correlation analysis. It allows matter-wave experiments under perturbingly lab conditions and can be applied in principle to electron, atom, ion, neutron and molecule interferometers.

References in corpus (3)

• Decoherence of matter waves by thermal emission of radiation
• Cold Atom Physics Using Ultra-Thin Optical Fibers: Light-Induced Dipole Forces and Surface Interactions
• Polarizability measurements in a molecule near-field interferometer

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Decoherence as a way to measure extremely soft collisions with dark matter
• Coherent properties of a tunable low energy electron matter wave source
• A compact electron matter wave interferometer for sensor technology
• Spatial Correlation in Matter Wave Interference as a Measure of Decoherence, Dephasing and Entropy
• Vibrational dephasing in matter-wave interferometers
• Second-order correlations in single-particle interferometry
• Information transfer by quantum matterwave modulation