Improved optical standing-wave beam splitters for dilute Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different optical pulse shapes influence the performance and sensitivity of beam splitters in Bose-Einstein condensate atom interferometry, aiming to improve high-momentum state fidelity.

Contribution

It introduces the analysis of pulse shape effects on beam splitter performance, demonstrating reduced parameter sensitivity with optimized pulse shapes in simulations.

Findings

Optimized pulse shapes can reduce parameter sensitivity by an order of magnitude.

Different pulse shapes impact the fidelity of high-momentum states.

Simulation results show improved robustness of beam splitters with specific pulse shapes.

Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)-based atom interferometry exploits low temperatures and long coherence lengths to facilitate high-precision measurements. Progress in atom interferometry promises improvements in navigational devices like gyroscopes and accelerometers, as well as applications in fundamental physics such as accurate determination of physical constants. Previous work demonstrates that beam splitters and mirrors for coherent manipulation of dilute BEC momentum in atom interferometers can be implemented with sequences of non-resonant standing-wave light pulses. While previous work focuses on the optimization of the optical pulses' amplitude and duration to produce high-order momentum states with high fidelity, we explore how varying the shape of the optical pulses affects optimal beam-splitter performance, as well as the effect of pulse shape on the sensitivity of optimized parameters in achieving high fidelity in high-momentum states. In simulations of two-pulse beam splitters utilizing optimized square, triangle, and sinc-squared pulse shapes applied to dilute BECs, we, in some cases, reduce parameter sensitivity by an order of magnitude while maintaining fidelity.