Recoil-sensitive lithium interferometer without a subrecoil sample

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a recoil-sensitive lithium atom interferometer operating with warm atoms at 50 times the recoil temperature, enabling high-flux measurements and vibration noise suppression without requiring subrecoil cooling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel conjugate Ramsey-Bordé interferometer setup with warm lithium atoms, simplifying recoil measurements and noise suppression in atom interferometry.

Findings

Successful implementation of conjugate interferometers with warm lithium atoms.

Effective suppression of vibration phase noise through combined signal detection.

Recoil measurements achieved without subrecoil cooling techniques.

Abstract

We report simultaneous conjugate Ramsey-Bord\'e interferometers with a sample of low-mass (lithium-7) atoms at 50 times the recoil temperature. We optically pump the atoms to a magnetically insensitive state using the $2S_{1/2} - 2P_{1/2}$ line. Fast stimulated Raman beam splitters address a broad velocity class and unavoidably drive two conjugate interferometers that overlap spatially. We show that detecting the summed interference signals of both interferometers, using state labeling, allows recoil measurements and suppression of phase noise from vibrations. The use of "warm" atoms allows for simple, efficient, and high-flux atom sources and broadens the applicability of recoil-sensitive interferometry to particles that remain difficult to trap and cool.