Related papers: Suspension of atoms and gravimetry using a pulsed …
Does gravity influence local measurements? We use a dual-species atom interferometer with $2\,\text{s}$ of free-fall time to measure the relative acceleration between $^{85}$Rb and $^{87}$Rb wave packets in the Earth's gravitational field.…
Measuring the effect of gravity on antimatter is a longstanding problem in physics that has significant implications for our understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe. Here, we present a technique to measure the gravitational…
We study the possibility of detecting gravitational-waves with matter-wave interferometers, where atom beams are split, deflected and recombined totally by standing light waves. Our calculation shows that the phase shift is dominated by…
We present a new general design approach of a broad-band detector of gravitational radiation that relies on two atom interferometers separated by a distance L. In this scheme, only one arm and one laser will be used for operating the two…
We have developed a matter wave interferometer based on the diffraction of atoms from effective absorption gratings of light. In a setup with cold rubidium atoms in an atomic fountain the interferometer has been used to carry out tests of…
In this paper we show that the sensitivity of absorption imaging of ultracold atoms can be significantly improved by imaging in a standing-wave configuration. We present simulations of single-atom absorption imaging both for a…
Atom interferometers have been developed in the last three decades as new powerful tools to investigate gravity. They were used for measuring the gravity acceleration, the gravity gradient, and the gravity-field curvature, for the…
In an ideal test of the equivalence principle, the test masses fall in a common inertial frame. A real experiment is affected by gravity gradients, which introduce systematic errors by coupling to initial kinematic differences between the…
The sensitivity of atom interferometers is usually limited by the observation time of a free falling cloud of atoms in Earth's gravitational field. Considerable efforts are currently made to increase this observation time, e.g. in fountain…
Light-pulse atom interferometers rely on the wave nature of matter and its manipulation with coherent laser pulses. They are used for precise gravimetry and inertial sensing as well as for accurate measurements of fundamental constants.…
We here present a high sensitivity gravity-gradiometer based on atom interferometry. In our apparatus, two clouds of laser-cooled rubidium atoms are launched in fountain configuration and interrogated by a Raman interferometry sequence to…
Atomic accelerometers and gravimeters are usually based on freely-falling atoms in atomic fountains, which not only limits their size, but also their robustness to environmental factors such as tilts, magnetic fields or vibrations. Such…
Interference is fundamental to wave dynamics and quantum mechanics. The quantum wave properties of particles are exploited in metrology using atom interferometers, allowing for high-precision inertia measurements [1, 2]. Furthermore, the…
We demonstrate the realization of a new scheme for cold atom gravimetry based on the use of double diffraction beamsplitters recently demonstrated in \cite{Leveque}, where the use of two retro-reflected Raman beams allows symmetric…
We present the perspective of using atom interferometry for gravitational wave (GW) detection in the mHz to about 10 Hz frequency band. We focus on light-pulse atom interferometers which have been subject to intense developments in the last…
We describe the operation of a light pulse interferometer using cold 87Rb atoms in reduced gravity. Using a series of two Raman transitions induced by light pulses, we have obtained Ramsey fringes in the low gravity environment achieved…
A trapped-atom interferometer was demonstrated using gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates coherently split by deforming an optical single-well potential into a double-well potential. The relative phase between the two condensates was…
We describe a novel atom trap for Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb to be used in atom interferometry experiments. The trap is based on a time-orbiting potential waveguide. It supports the atoms against gravity while providing weak…
A detailed analysis of the most relevant sources of phase noise in an atomic interferometer is carried out, both theoretically and experimentally. Even a short interrogation time of 100 ms allows our cold atom gravimeter to reach an…
The kinetic energy of an atom recoiling due to absorption of a photon was measured as a frequency using an interferometric technique called ``contrast interferometry''. Optical standing wave pulses were used as atom-optical elements to…