Coherent matter wave inertial sensors for precision measurements in space

Yann Le Coq (1) , Jocelyn A. Retter (1) , Simon Richard (2) , Alain Aspect (1) , Philippe Bouyer (1)

1 laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Optique atomique
2 TRT - Thales Research and Technologies [Orsay]

We analyze the advantages of using ultra-cold coherent sources of atoms for matter-wave interferometry in space. We present a proof-of-principle experiment that is based on an analysis of the results previously published in [Richard et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, 010405 (2003)] from which we extract the ratio h/m for 87Rb. This measurement shows that a limitation in accuracy arises due to atomic interactions within the Bose-Einstein condensate.

Keywords: Metrology; Atom Interferometry; Optical Cooling and Trapping; Matter Waves; Bose-Einstein Condensation

Domains: Other [cond-mat.other]; Optics [physics.optics]

Yann Le Coq, Jocelyn A. Retter, Simon Richard, Alain Aspect, Philippe Bouyer. Coherent matter wave inertial sensors for precision measurements in space. Applied Physics B - Laser and Optics, 2006, 84, pp.627-632. ⟨10.1007/s00340-006-2363-2⟩. ⟨hal-00004016v2⟩