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arXiv · 1712.06738

Three-path atom interferometry with large momentum separation

Benjamin Plotkin-Swing·Daniel Gochnauer·Katherine E. McAlpine·Eric S. Cooper·Alan O. Jamison·Subhadeep Gupta
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Abstract

We demonstrate the scale up of a symmetric three-path contrast interferometer to large momentum separation. The observed phase stability at separation of 112 photon recoil momenta ($112\hbar k$) exceeds the performance of earlier free-space interferometers. In addition to the symmetric interferometer geometry and Bose-Einstein condensate source, the robust scalability of our approach relies crucially on the suppression of undesired diffraction phases through a careful choice of atom optics parameters. The interferometer phase evolution is quadratic with number of recoils, reaching a rate as high as $7\times10^7$ radians/s. We discuss the applicability of our method towards a new measurement of the fine-structure constant and a test of QED.

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Benjamin Plotkin-Swing, Daniel Gochnauer, Katherine E. McAlpine, Eric S. Cooper, Alan O. Jamison, Subhadeep Gupta. 2017-12-19. Three-path atom interferometry with large momentum separation. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.121.133201

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