Atom interferometer as a freely falling clock for time-dilation measurements
arXiv:2402.11065 · doi:10.1088/2058-9565/ad9e2e
Abstract
Light-pulse atom interferometers based on single-photon transitions are a promising tool for gravitational-wave detection in the mid-frequency band and the search for ultralight dark-matter fields. Here we present a novel measurement scheme that enables their use as freely falling clocks directly measuring relativistic time-dilation effects. The proposal is particularly timely because it can be implemented with no additional requirements in Fermilab's MAGIS-100 experiment or even in the 10-m prototypes that are expected to start operating very soon. This will allow the unprecedented measurement of gravitational time dilation in a local experiment with freely falling atoms, which is out of reach even for the best atomic-fountain clocks based on microwave transitions. The results are supported by a comprehensive treatment of relativistic effects in this kind of interferometers as well as a detailed analysis of the main systematic effects. Furthermore, the theoretical methods developed here constitute a valuable tool for modelling light-pulse atom interferometers based on single-photon transitions in general.
8 + 18 pages including appendices, 6 figures
References in corpus (16)
- The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
- Measurement of the fine-structure constant as a test of the Standard Model
- Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
- Interferometry with Bose-Einstein Condensates in Microgravity
- A New Method for Gravitational Wave Detection with Atomic Sensors
- Quantum Test of the Universality of Free Fall
- Equivalence Principle Violations and Couplings of a Light Dilaton
- Matter wave lensing to picokelvin temperatures
- General Relativistic Effects in Atom Interferometry
- Nuclear Spin Effects in Optical Lattice Clocks
- Test of the Gravitational Redshift with Galileo Satellites in an Eccentric Orbit
- Atom interferometry with the Sr optical clock transition
- Comparison between two mobile absolute gravimeters: optical versus atomic interferometers
- Large Momentum Transfer Clock Atom Interferometry on the 689 nm Intercombination Line of Strontium
- Atomic diffraction from single-photon transitions in gravity and Standard-Model extensions
- Violation of the equivalence principle induced by oscillating rest mass and transition frequency, and its detection in atom interferometers