Coherent matter wave inertial sensors for precision measurements in space

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of ultra-cold coherent atom sources for space-based matter-wave interferometry, demonstrating a measurement of the h/m ratio for 87Rb and discussing atomic interaction limitations.

Contribution

It provides a proof-of-principle experiment analyzing the advantages of coherent matter waves in space-based sensors and identifies atomic interactions as a key accuracy limitation.

Findings

Measured h/m ratio for 87Rb from previous data

Atomic interactions limit measurement accuracy

Demonstrated potential of matter-wave sensors in space

Abstract

We analyze the advantages of using ultra-cold coherent sources of atoms for matter-wave interferometry in space. We present a proof-of-principle experiment that is based on an analysis of the results previously published in [Richard et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, 010405 (2003)] from which we extract the ratio h/m for 87Rb. This measurement shows that a limitation in accuracy arises due to atomic interactions within the Bose-Einstein condensate.