Atom Interferometry with a Weakly Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensate

Journal Article · Fri Feb 29 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.100.080405· OSTI ID:21024802

Fattori, M ^[1]; D'Errico, C; Roati, G; Inguscio, M; Modugno, G ^[1]; Zaccanti, M; Jona-Lasinio, M ^[1]; Modugno, M ^[1]

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1. LENS and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita di Firenze, and INFM-CNR Via Nello Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Italy)

We demonstrate the operation of an atom interferometer based on a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate. We strongly reduce the interaction induced decoherence that usually limits interferometers based on trapped condensates by tuning the s-wave scattering length almost to zero via a magnetic Feshbach resonance. We employ a {sup 39}K condensate trapped in an optical lattice, where Bloch oscillations are forced by gravity. The fine-tuning of the scattering length down to 0.1 a{sub 0} and the micrometric sizes of the atomic sample make our system a very promising candidate for measuring forces with high spatial resolution. Our technique can be in principle extended to other measurement schemes opening new possibilities in the field of trapped atom interferometry.

• OSTI ID: 21024802
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 8 Vol. 100; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
GRAVITATION
INTERFEROMETERS
INTERFEROMETRY
OSCILLATIONS
POTASSIUM 39
S WAVES
SCATTERING LENGTHS
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
TRAPPING