Contrast decay in a trapped-atom interferometer

作者:Hilico A*; Solaro C; Zhou M K; Lopez M; dos Santos F Pereira
来源:Physical Review A, 2015, 91(5): 053616.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.91.053616

摘要

A Ramsey-Raman interferometer is used to realize a compact force sensor using cold Rb-87 atoms trapped in a vertical optical lattice. The sensitivity and accuracy of the force measurements are discussed and the limits in short-term sensitivity evaluated. We reach a relative sensitivity on the Bloch frequency and thus on the gravity acceleration of 3.9 x 10(-6) at 1 s. We perform an experimental study of the influence of the transverse confinement onto the decay of the interferometer contrast and compare the measurements with a simple semiclassical model. It is shown that vertical gradients of the trapping potential can contribute significantly to the loss of contrast.

  • 出版日期2015-5-18