Title :
Interferometry with Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity
Author :
Ahlers, Holger ; Rasel, Ernst Maria
Author_Institution :
Inst. fur Quantenopt., Leibniz Univ. Hannover, Hannover, Germany
Abstract :
Matter-wave sensors are considered to be one of the most promising fields for progress in metrology and fundamental tests. We report on the development of a miniaturized and robust experiment within the QUANTUS collaboration using ultra cold atoms in a free fall environment as a test-bed for matter-wave interferometry on long timescales. Over 200 experiments in microgravity have been performed so far at the ZARM drop tower in Bremen and a BEC was observed after expansion times of up to 1s. The combination of long expansion times and low density samples is beneficial for the application in interferometry. We present the recently implemented interferometer in our chip-based 87Rb BEC experiment including on-chip state preparation. Bragg diffraction is used for coherent manipulation, realizing different interferometer schemes. First results on ground and in microgravity are shown.
Keywords :
Bose-Einstein condensation; Bragg gratings; rubidium; zero gravity experiments; Bose-Einstein condensates; Bragg diffraction; Bremen; QUANTUS collaboration; Rb; ZARM drop tower; chip-based BEC; coherent manipulation; free fall environment; matter-wave interferometry; matter-wave sensors; microgravity; on-chip state preparation; ultra cold atoms; Collaboration; Diffraction; Interferometry; Lasers; Metrology; Poles and towers; Robustness;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe (CLEO EUROPE/EQEC), 2011 Conference on and 12th European Quantum Electronics Conference
Conference_Location :
Munich
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-0533-5
Electronic_ISBN :
Pending
DOI :
10.1109/CLEOE.2011.5942916