Quantum sensitivity limit of a Sagnac hybrid interferometer based on slow-light propagation in ultra-cold gases

Abstract

The light--matter-wave Sagnac interferometer based on ultra-slow light proposed recently in (Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 253201 (2004)) is analyzed in detail. In particular the effect of confining potentials is examined and it is shown that the ultra-slow light attains a rotational phase shift equivalent to that of a matter wave, if and only if the coherence transfer from light to atoms associated with slow light is associated with a momentum transfer and if an ultra-cold gas in a ring trap is used. The quantum sensitivity limit of the Sagnac interferometer is determined and the minimum detectable rotation rate calculated. It is shown that the slow-light interferometer allows for a significantly higher signal-to-noise ratio as possible in current matter-wave gyroscopes.

12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Dark-State Polaritons in Electromagnetically Induced Transparency
• Ultra-Slow Light and Enhanced Nonlinear Optical Effects in a Coherently Driven Hot Atomic Gas
• Bose-Einstein condensation in a circular waveguide
• Physics with Coherent Matter Waves
• A large magnetic storage ring for Bose-Einstein condensates
• Ultrahigh sensitivity of slow-light gyroscope
• Sagnac interferometry based on ultra-slow polaritons in cold atomic vapors

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Sagnac interferometry with coherent vortex superposition states in exciton-polariton condensates
• Atom-light hybrid quantum gyroscope
• Photonic band-gap properties for two-component slow light