Classical noise and flux: the limits of multi-state atom lasers

TL;DR

This paper investigates how classical noise in multi-state atom lasers increases with flux, highlighting a trade-off crucial for precision measurements, supported by experimental data and 3D simulations of Bose-Einstein condensates.

Contribution

It provides a direct comparison between experiment and theory, revealing the flux-noise relationship and explaining the atom laser structure with advanced simulations.

Findings

Classical noise increases with flux in multi-state atom lasers.

The structure of the atom laser beam is explained by 3D Gross-Pitaevskii simulations.

A trade-off between flux and noise impacts precision interferometry.

Abstract

By direct comparison between experiment and theory, we show how the classical noise on a multi-state atom laser beam increases with increasing flux. The trade off between classical noise and flux is an important consideration in precision interferometric measurement. We use periodic 10 microsecond radio-frequency pulses to couple atoms out of an F=2 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate. The resulting atom laser beam has suprising structure which is explained using three dimensional simulations of the five state Gross-Pitaevskii equations.