A High-Contrast Bragg Atom Interferometer for Testing Continuous Spontaneous Localization

Abstract

The continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model is one of the most promising approaches to address the wave function collapse problem in the measurement process of standard quantum mechanics. In this work, the effect of the CSL model on a Bragg atom interferometer was investigated. A Bragg interferometer achieving high fringe contrast of 99$\%$ has been demonstrated, maintaining this performance level at interrogation time up to $T=60\mathrm{ms}$. The primary factors responsible for fringe contrast loss in the atom interferometer were systematically analyzed and corrected. This improvement established a new upper limit of $\hat{I}{»}_{\mathrm{CSL}}=1.27\times 10^{-5}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$ at $r_C=10^{-5}\mathrm{m}$ for the CSL collapse rate, representing approximately 4 times enhancement over previous atom-interferometric constraints.

8 pages, 5 figures