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arXiv · 1606.00218

Competition between Spin Echo and Spin Self-Rephasing in a Trapped Atom Interferometer

Cyrille Solaro·Alexis Bonnin·Frédéric Combes·Matthias Lopez·Xavier Alauze·Jean-Noël Fuchs·Frédéric Piéchon·Franck Pereira dos Santos
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Abstract

We perform Ramsey interferometry on an ultracold 87Rb ensemble confined in an optical dipoletrap. We use a \pi-pulse set at the middle of the interferometer to restore the coherence of the spinensemble by canceling out phase inhomogeneities and creating a spin echo in the contrast. However,for high atomic densities, we observe the opposite behavior: the \pi-pulse accelerates the dephasingof the spin ensemble leading to a faster contrast decay of the interferometer. We understand thisphenomenon as a competition between the spin-echo technique and an exchange-interaction drivenspin self-rephasing mechanism based on the identical spin rotation effect. Our experimental data iswell reproduced by a numerical model.

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Cyrille Solaro, Alexis Bonnin, Frédéric Combes, Matthias Lopez, Xavier Alauze, Jean-Noël Fuchs, Frédéric Piéchon, Franck Pereira dos Santos. 2016-06-01. Competition between Spin Echo and Spin Self-Rephasing in a Trapped Atom Interferometer. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.117.163003

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