He-McKellar-Wilkens topological phase in atom interferometry
Atomic Physics
2015-06-11 v1 Quantum Physics
Abstract
We report the first experimental test of the topological phase predicted by He and McKellar and by Wilkens in 1993: this phase, which appears when an electric dipole propagates in a magnetic field, is connected to the Aharonov-Casher effect by electric-magnetic duality. The He-McKellar-Wilkens phase is quite small, at most 27 mrad in our experiment, and this experiment requires the high phase sensitivity of our atom interferometer with spatially separated arms as well as symmetry reversals such as the direction of the electric and magnetic fields. The measured value of the He-McKellar-Wilkens phase differs by 31% from its theoretical value, a difference possibly due to some as yet uncontrolled systematic errors.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1210.5697,
title = {He-McKellar-Wilkens topological phase in atom interferometry},
author = {Steven Lepoutre and Gérard Trenec and Matthias Büchner and Jacques Vigué and Alexandre Gauguet},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.5697},
year = {2015}
}