Related papers: Clock Transitions Versus Bragg Diffraction in Atom…
The dark-matter candidates of particle physics invariably possess electromagnetic interactions, if only via quantum fluctuations. Taken en masse, dark matter can thus engender an index of refraction which deviates from its vacuum value. Its…
We present a new framework to study the time variation of fundamental constants in a model-independent way. Model independence implies more free parameters than assumed in previous studies. Using data from atomic clocks based on $^{87}$Sr,…
Atomic sensors using light-matter interactions, in particular atomic clocks and atom interferometers, have the potential to complement optical gravitational-wave detectors in the mid-frequency regime. Although both rely on interference, the…
In papers on primary state diffusion (Percival 1994, 1995), numerical estimates suggested that fluctuations in the space-time metric on the scale of the Planck time (10^-44s) could be detected using atom interferometers. In this paper we…
Cooperative effects in the fluorescence of two dipole-interacting atoms, with macroscopic quantum jumps (light and dark periods), are investigated. The transition rates between different intensity periods are calculated in closed form and…
We show that the light shift in atomic clocks can be suppressed using time variation of the interrogation field intensity. By measuring the clock output at two intensity levels, error signals can be generated that simultaneously stabilize a…
Atomic clocks provide a reproducible basis for our understanding of time and frequency. Recent demonstrations of compact optical clocks, employing thermal atomic beams, have achieved short-term fractional frequency instabilities in the…
Bragg diffraction of an atomic wave packet in a retroreflective geometry with two counterpropagating optical lattices exhibits a light shift induced phase. We show that the temporal shape of the light pulse determines the behavior of this…
Atom interferometers provide a powerful means of realizing quantum coherent systems with increasingly macroscopic extent in space and time. These systems provide an opportunity for a variety of novel tests of fundamental physics, including…
We analyze the nature and performance of clocks formed by stabilizing an oscillator to the phase difference between two paths of an atom interferometer. The phase evolution has been modeled as being driven by the proper-time difference…
We propose an experiment to search for ultralight scalar dark matter (DM) with dilatonic interactions. Such couplings can arise for the dilaton as well as for moduli and axion-like particles in the presence of CP violation. Ultralight…
The equations of electrodynamics are altered in the presence of a classical coherent axion dark matter background field, changing the dispersion relation for electromagnetic waves. Careful measurements of the frequency stability in…
The influence of an external test mass on the phase of the signal of an atom interferometer is studied theoretically. Using traditional techniques in atom optics based on the density matrix equations in the Wigner representation, we are…
We propose to search for scalar dark matter via its effects on the electromagnetic fine-structure constant and particle masses. Scalar dark matter that forms an oscillating classical field produces `slow' linear-in-time drifts and…
We demonstrate a light-pulse atom interferometer based on the diffraction of free-falling atoms by a picosecond frequency-comb laser. More specifically, we coherently split and recombine wave packets of cold $^{87}$Rb atoms by driving…
Recently, it has been proposed that space-based atomic sensors may be used to detect gravitational waves. These proposals describe the sensors either as clocks or as atom interferometers. Here, we seek to explore the fundamental…
We outline new laser interferometer measurements to search for variation of the electromagnetic fine-structure constant $\alpha$ and particle masses (including a non-zero photon mass). We propose a strontium optical lattice clock -- silicon…
The operation of a BEC based atom interferometer, where the atoms are held in a weakly-confining magnetic trap and manipulated with counter-propagating laser beams, is analyzed. A simple analytic model is developed to describe the dynamics…
Atomic interferometry can be used to probe dark energy models coupled to matter. We consider the constraints coming from recent experimental results on models generalising the inverse power law chameleons such as $f(R)$ gravity in the large…
We present a novel atom interferometer configuration that combines large momentum transfer with the enhancement of an optical resonator for the purpose of measuring gravitational strain in the horizontal directions. Using Bragg diffraction…