Geometric phase amplification in a clock interferometer for enhanced metrology

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a clock interferometer can significantly improve measurement precision through geometric phase amplification, achieving an 8.8 dB enhancement in experiments and promising further gains for advanced sensing and fundamental physics tests.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel use of geometric phase amplification in clock interferometry to enhance measurement precision beyond traditional methods.

Findings

Achieved 8.8 dB precision enhancement in measuring external field differences.

Identified potential for tens of decibels of improvement with higher atom flux.

Validated the role of geometric phase in boosting interferometric sensitivity.

Abstract

High-precision measurements are crucial for testing the fundamental laws of nature and for advancing the technological frontier. Clock interferometry, where particles with an internal clock are coherently split and recombined along two spatial paths, has sparked significant interest due to its fundamental implications, especially at the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Here, we demonstrate that a clock interferometer provides metrological improvement with respect to its technical-noise-limited counterpart employing a single internal quantum state. This enhancement around a critical working point can be interpreted as a geometric-phase-induced signal-to-noise ratio gain. In our experimental setup, we infer a precision enhancement of 8.8 decibels when measuring a small difference between external fields. We estimate that tens of decibels of precision enhancement could be attained for measurements with a higher atom flux. This opens the door to the development of a superior probe for fundamental physics as well as a high-performance sensor for various technological applications.