Wave-function recombination instability in cold-atom interferometers

A compact micro-wave synthesizer for transportable cold-atom interferometers.

We present the realization of a compact micro-wave frequency synthesizer for an atom interferometer based on stimulated Raman transitions, applied to transportable inertial sensing. Our set-up is intended to address the hyperfine transitions of (87)Rb at 6.8 GHz. The prototype is evaluated both in the time and the frequency domain by comparison with state-of-the-art frequency references develop...

Decoherence dynamics in low-dimensional cold atom interferometers.

We report on a study of the dynamics of decoherence of a matter-wave interferometer, consisting of a pair of low-dimensional cold atom condensates at finite temperature. We identify two distinct regimes in the time dependence of the coherence factor of the interferometer: quantum and classical. Explicit analytical results are obtained in both regimes. In particular, in the two-dimensional case ...

Atom Interferometers

Comparative Sensitivities of Gravitational Wave Detectors based on Atom Interferometers and Light Interferometers

iNe consider a class of proposed gravitational wave detectors based on multiple atomic interferometers separated by large baselines and referenced by common laser systems. We compute the sensitivity limits of these detectors due to intrinsic phase noise of the light sources, non-inertial motion of the light sources, and atomic shot noise and compare them to sensitivity limits for traditional li...

Simultaneous Atom Interferometers

We demonstrate phase lock of two > 1.6W Titanium:sapphire lasers with a phase noise of -138 dBc/Hz at 1MHz from the carrier, using an intra-cavity electro-optic phase modulator. The residual phase variance is 2.5 × 10 rad integrated from 1Hz to 10 kHz. Instantaneous offset frequency steps of up to 4MHz are achieved within 200 ns. Simultaneous atom interferometers can make full use of this ultra...