Rabi interferometry and sensitive measurement of the Casimir-Polder force with ultracold gases
- BEC-CNR-INFM and Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita di Trento, I-38050 Povo (Italy)
- Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, CNRS and Univ. Paris-Sud, Campus Polytechnique, RD 128, F-91127 Palaiseau cedex (France)
We show that Rabi oscillations of a degenerate fermionic or bosonic gas trapped in a double-well potential can be exploited for the interferometric measurement of external forces at micrometer length scales. The Rabi interferometer is less sensitive but easier to implement than the Mach-Zehnder, since it does not require dynamical beam-splitting or recombination processes. As an application we propose a measurement of the Casimir-Polder force acting between the atoms and a dielectric surface. We find that even if the interferometer is fed with a coherent state of relatively small number of atoms, and in the presence of realistic experimental noise, the force might be measured with a sensitivity sufficient to discriminate between thermal and zero-temperature regimes of the Casimir-Polder potential. Higher sensitivities can be reached with bosonic spin squeezed states.
- OSTI ID:
- 21448624
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 82, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.82.032104; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOMS
BEAM SPLITTING
BOSONS
CASIMIR EFFECT
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
EXCITED STATES
FERMIONS
GASES
INTERFEROMETRY
NOISE
OSCILLATIONS
POTENTIALS
QUANTUM STATES
RECOMBINATION
SENSITIVITY
SPIN
SURFACES
TEMPERATURE ZERO K
TRAPPING
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
ENERGY LEVELS
FLUIDS
MATERIALS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES