Multimode Trapped Interferometer with Ideal Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a multi-mode interferometer comprising a Bose-Einstein condensate of ${}^{39}$K atoms trapped in a harmonic potential, where the interatomic interaction can be cancelled exploiting Feshbach resonances. Kapitza-Dirac diffraction from an optical lattice coherently splits the BEC in multiple momentum components equally spaced that form different interferometric paths, closed by the trapping harmonic potential. We investigate two different interferometric schemes, where the recombination pulse is applied after a full or half oscillation in the confining potential. We find that the relative amplitudes of the momentum components at the interferometer output are sensitive to external forces, through the induced displacement of the harmonic potential with respect to the optical lattice. We show how to calibrate the interferometer, fully characterize its output and discuss perspective improvements.

7 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Atom Interferometers
• Measurement of the fine-structure constant as a test of the Standard Model
• Matter-wave interferometry in a double well on an atom chip
• Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
• Feshbach resonances in ultracold K(39)
• Hypersonic Bose-Einstein Condensates in Accelerator Rings
• Spatial Bloch oscillations of a quantum gas in a "beat-note" superlattice

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Matter-wave collimation to picokelvin energies with scattering length and potential shape control
• Diffraction of strongly interacting molecular Bose-Einstein condensate from standing wave light pulses
• Analytical description of collisional decoherence in a BEC double-well accelerometer
• Reference frame-independent model of a collective excitation atom interferometer