Light-pulse atom interferometry with entangled atom-optical elements

TL;DR

This paper explores how entangling light fields in light-pulse atom interferometers can erase path information and partially restore interference visibility, emphasizing the role of quantum entanglement in enhancing atom interferometry.

Contribution

It demonstrates that entanglement among light fields can mitigate visibility loss in atom interferometers caused by quantum properties of light fields.

Findings

Entanglement reduces which-path information.

Visibility can be partially recovered through entanglement.

Quantum properties of light fields impact interferometric measurements.

Abstract

The analogs of optical elements in light-pulse atom interferometers are generated from the interaction of matter waves with light fields. As such, these fields possess quantum properties, which fundamentally lead to a reduced visibility in the observed interference. This loss is a consequence of the encoded information about the atom's path. However, the quantum nature of the atom-optical elements also gives an additional degree of freedom to reduce such effects: We demonstrate that entanglement between all light fields can be used to erase information about the atom's path and by that to partially recover the visibility. Thus, our work highlights the role of complementarity on atom-interferometric experiments.