Bright Solitonic Matter-Wave Interferometer

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Bright Solitonic Matter-Wave Interferometer

G. D. McDonald, C. C. N. Kuhn, K. S. Hardman, S. Bennetts, P. J. Everitt, P. A. Altin, J. E. Debs, J. D. Close, and N. P. Robins

Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 013002 – Published 2 July 2014; Erratum Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 219903 (2017)

Abstract

We present the first realization of a solitonic atom interferometer. A Bose-Einstein condensate of $1 \times 10^{4}$ atoms of rubidium-85 is loaded into a horizontal optical waveguide. Through the use of a Feshbach resonance, the $s$ -wave scattering length of the ${}^{85}{Rb}$ atoms is tuned to a small negative value. This attractive atomic interaction then balances the inherent matter-wave dispersion, creating a bright solitonic matter wave. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer is constructed by driving Bragg transitions with the use of an optical lattice colinear with the waveguide. Matter-wave propagation and interferometric fringe visibility are compared across a range of $s$ -wave scattering values including repulsive, attractive and noninteracting values. The solitonic matter wave is found to significantly increase fringe visibility even compared with a noninteracting cloud.

Received 14 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.013002

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Erratum

Erratum: Bright Solitonic Matter-Wave Interferometer [Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 013002 (2014)]

G. D. McDonald, C. C. N. Kuhn, K. S. Hardman, S. Bennetts, P. J. Everitt, P. A. Altin, J. E. Debs, J. D. Close, and N. P. Robins

Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 219903 (2017)

Authors & Affiliations

G. D. McDonald^*, C. C. N. Kuhn, K. S. Hardman, S. Bennetts, P. J. Everitt, P. A. Altin, J. E. Debs, J. D. Close, and N. P. Robins

Quantum Sensors and Atomlaser Lab, Department of Quantum Science, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia

^*gordon.mcdonald@anu.edu.au; http://atomlaser.anu.edu.au/

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Issue

Vol. 113, Iss. 1 — 4 July 2014

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Images

Figure 1
(a) Schematic of a Mach-Zehnder matter-wave interferometer constructed by using optical Bragg transitions. (b) Measurement of the magnetic field curvature in the waveguide via rf spectroscopy. The magnetic field at each position is determined from the frequency required to drive inter- $m_{F}$ transitions on an extended cloud of atoms in the guide. The red line is a parabolic fit to the data, indicating a repulsive harmonic potential with frequency $ω_{z} = 2 π i \times 3 Hz$ along the waveguide. The interferometer and soliton expansion occurs in the region shaded in blue, slightly to the left of the maximum in the potential.
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Figure 2
(a) Longitudinal width of a matter wave as a function of scattering length, measured after 90 ms of free expansion in the guide. Green dashed lines are to guide the eye. The soliton parameter of $a_{s} = - 30 a_{0}$ is seen to minimize this expansion. (b) Comparison of longitudinal expansion along the guide for three different scattering lengths: the repulsive self-interaction of $a = 260 a_{0}$ , the low interaction case of $a = 5 a_{0}$ , and the soliton parameter of $a_{s} = - 30 a_{0}$ . The dashed lines are parabolic fits to extract the acceleration of cloud width. For $a = a_{s}$ this acceleration is consistent with zero. Error bars shown in both (a) and (b) are statistical.
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Figure 3
(a) Each interferometric fringe is fitted to a function $N_{rel} = (V / 2) \cos (ϕ + Φ) + c$ to extract the fringe visibility $V$ and interferometric phase $Φ$ . The data shown here are the interference fringe for a soliton, with $a = a_{s}$ . (b) Fringe visibility (open circles) as a function of $s$ -wave scattering length $a$ for a $T = 1 ms$ Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer. Red dashed lines are to guide the eye. A dramatic increase in the fringe visibility is seen at the soliton parameter $a_{s} \approx - 30 a_{0}$ for our system. Inset: The interferometric phase $Φ$ for various $a$ . (c) Fringe visibility as a function of the interferometer time $T$ . Results for a noninteracting interferometer with $a = 0$ (filled green squares) and the soliton interferometer with $a = a_{s} = - 30 a_{0}$ (open circles) are shown. Gaussian fits provide half-maximum decay times of 0.9 (green dashed line) and 2.3 ms (solid purple line), respectively. The solitonic matter wave optimizes the fringe visibility at all times we have tested. Inset: Measured interferometric phase $Φ$ for the soliton interferometer as a function of $T$ . All uncertainties in (b) and (c) are $1 σ$ confidence intervals of the fit to each interferometric fringe.
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