Principles of tractor atom interferometry

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel design for a tractor atom interferometer that enhances compactness, control, and sensitivity for quantum sensing applications, including accelerometers and gyroscopes, by utilizing three-dimensional confinement and optimal control techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a new TAI design with 3D confinement, fast wave-function splitting, and potential for quantum enhancement, advancing compact high-sensitivity quantum sensors.

Findings

Wave-function splitting achieved two orders faster than previous methods

Design enables arbitrary holding times and complex trajectories

Performance estimates suggest significant sensitivity improvements

Abstract

We present possible design concepts for a tractor atom interferometer (TAI) based on three-dimensional confinement and transport of ultracold atoms. The confinement reduces device size and wave-packet dispersion, enables arbitrary holding times, and facilitates control to create complex trajectories that allow for optimization to cancel unwanted sensitivity, fast splitting and recombination, and suppression of detrimental nonadiabatic excitation. Thus, the design allows for further advancement of compact, high-sensitivity, quantum sensing technology. In particular, we focus on the implementation of quantum-enhanced accelerometers and gyroscopes. We discuss TAI protocols for both spin-dependent and scalar trapping potentials. Using optimal control theory, we demonstrate the splitting of the wave function on a time scale two orders of magnitude shorter than the previous proposal using adiabatic dynamics, thus maximizing the time spent at full separation, where the interferometric phase is accumulated. Lastly, we explore the possibility of including non-classical correlations between the atoms to improve sensitivity. The performance estimates for TAI give a promising perspective for atom-interferometry-based sensing, significantly exceeding the sensitivities of current state-of-the-art devices.