Improving the phase response of an atom interferometer by means of temporal pulse shaping

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that temporally shaping light pulses in atom interferometers improves phase response by rejecting high-frequency phase fluctuations and adjusting the scale factor, enhancing measurement accuracy.

Contribution

It provides both theoretical and experimental insights into how pulse shaping affects phase response and scale factor in atom interferometers, offering new methods to optimize their performance.

Findings

Smooth pulse shapes reject high-frequency phase noise.

Pulse shaping modifies the interferometer's scale factor.

Trade-offs include phase noise rejection and velocity selectivity.

Abstract

We study theoretically and experimentally the influence of temporally shaping the light pulses in an atom interferometer, with a focus on the phase response of the interferometer. We show that smooth light pulse shapes allow rejecting high frequency phase fluctuations (above the Rabi frequency) and thus relax the requirements on the phase noise or frequency noise of the interrogation lasers driving the interferometer. The light pulse shape is also shown to modify the scale factor of the interferometer, which has to be taken into account in the evaluation of its accuracy budget. We discuss the trade-offs to operate when choosing a particular pulse shape, by taking into account phase noise rejection, velocity selectivity, and applicability to large momentum transfer atom interferometry.