Electric Rydberg-atom interferometery

Abstract

An electric analogue of the longitudinal Stern-Gerlach matter-wave interferometer has been realized for atoms in Rydberg states with high principal quantum number, $n$. The experiments were performed with He atoms prepared in coherent superpositions of the $n=55$ and $n=56$ circular Rydberg states in zero electric field by a $\pi /2$ pulse of resonant microwave radiation. These atoms were subjected to a pulsed inhomogeneous electric field to generate a superposition of momentum states before a $\pi$ pulse was applied to invert the internal states. The same pulsed inhomogeneous electric field was then reapplied for a second time to transform the motional states to have equal momenta before a further $\pi /2$ pulse was employed to interrogate the final Rydberg state populations. This Hahn-echo microwave pulse sequence, interspersed with a pair of equivalent inhomogeneous electric field pulses, yielded two spatially separated matter waves. Interferences between these matter waves were observed as oscillations in the final Rydberg state populations as the amplitude of the pulsed electric field gradients was adjusted.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Atom Interferometers
• Models of Wave-function Collapse, Underlying Theories, and Experimental Tests
• Colloquium: Quantum interference of clusters and molecules
• Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals
• The radiative lifetime of metastable CO ($a^3\Pi ,v=0$)
• Rydberg-Stark deceleration of atoms and molecules
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• Comment on "Matter-wave interferometry with helium atoms in low-$l$ Rydberg states''
• Stern-Gerlach interferometry in three dimensions: the role of transverse fields
• Atom walking in a traveling-wave light