Interleaved Atom Interferometry for High Sensitivity Inertial Measurements

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an interleaved cold-atom gyroscope achieving high sensitivity and sampling rate, enabling dynamic rotation measurements and advancing applications in navigation, geoscience, and fundamental physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interleaved operation method for cold-atom gyroscopes, significantly improving inertial sensitivity and dynamic measurement capabilities.

Findings

Achieved a 3.75 Hz sampling rate with 801 ms interrogation time.

Demonstrated a stability of 3×10^{-10} rad·s^{-1}.

Validated interleaving as a key technique for future atom-interferometry sensors.

Abstract

Cold-atom inertial sensors target several applications in navigation, geoscience and tests of fundamental physics. Reaching high sampling rates and high inertial sensitivities, obtained with long interrogation times, represents a challenge for these applications. We report on the interleaved operation of a cold-atom gyroscope, where 3 atomic clouds are interrogated simultaneously in an atom interferometer featuring a 3.75 Hz sampling rate and an interrogation time of 801 ms. Interleaving improves the inertial sensitivity by efficiently averaging vibration noise, and allows us to perform dynamic rotation measurements in a so-far unexplored range. We demonstrate a stability of $3\times 10^{-10}$ rad.s$^{-1}$, which competes with the best stability levels obtained with fiber-optics gyroscopes. Our work validates interleaving as a key concept for future atom-interferometry sensors probing time-varying signals, as in on-board navigation and gravity-gradiometry, searches for dark matter, or gravitational wave detection.