Lattice Interferometer for Ultra-Cold Atoms

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel atomic interferometer using ultra-cold atoms from an optical lattice, achieving improved signal-to-noise ratio and exploring pulse duration effects for precision measurements of fundamental constants.

Contribution

Introduces a new lattice-based atomic interferometer with enhanced signal quality and analyzes pulse duration effects, including longer pulses, for precision measurements.

Findings

Improved signal-to-noise ratio over previous interferometers.

Longer pulses can enhance measurement precision.

Observation of coherent signals at unexpected times.

Abstract

We demonstrate an atomic interferometer based on ultra-cold atoms released from an optical lattice. This technique yields a large improvement in signal to noise over a related interferometer previously demonstrated. The interferometer involves diffraction of the atoms using a pulsed optical lattice. For short pulses a simple analytical theory predicts the expected signal. We investigate the interferometer for both short pulses and longer pulses where the analytical theory break down. Longer pulses can improve the precision and signal size. For specific pulse lengths we observe a coherent signal at times that differs greatly from what is expected from the short pulse model. The interferometric signal also reveals information about the dynamics of the atoms in the lattice. We investigate the application of the interferometer for a measurement of $h/m_A$ that together with other well known constants constitutes a measurement of the fine structure constant.