Atomic population distribution in the output ports of cold-atom interferometers with optical splitting and recombination

Journal Article · Mon Nov 15 04:00:00 EST 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.82.053603· OSTI ID:21528683

Ilo-Okeke, Ebubechukwu O; Zozulya, Alex A ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609 (United States)

Cold-atom interferometers with optical splitting and recombination use off-resonant laser beams to split a cloud of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into two clouds that travel along different paths and are then recombined again using optical beams. After the recombination, the BEC in general populates both the cloud at rest and the moving clouds. Measuring a relative number of atoms in each of these clouds yields information about the relative phase shift accumulated by the atoms in the two moving clouds during the interferometric cycle. We derive the expression for the probability of finding any given number of atoms in each of the clouds, discuss features of the probability density distribution, analyze its dependence on the relative accumulated phase shift as a function of the strength of the interatomic interactions, and compare our results with experiment.

• OSTI ID: 21528683
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 82; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ATOMS
BEAMS
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
INTERACTIONS
INTERFEROMETERS
LASERS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
PHASE SHIFT
PHOTON BEAMS
PROBABILITY
RECOMBINATION