Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 34: Poster 1

Q 34.84: Poster

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.I+II

Towards a test of the Universality of Free Fall with atoms in a drop tower — •Sascha Kulas, Andreas Resch, Marcus Stadtlander, and Sven Herrmann — ZARM, Universität Bremen

The enhanced free fall time which can be achieved in a microgravity environment is expected to be of great benefit to matter wave precision measurements. Many of the necessary technological developments for such experiments and first promising results have been achieved by the QUANTUS collaboration in recent years [1]. Within the PRIMUS project (Präzisions-Interferometrie unter Schwerelosigkeit) we specifically aim to further explore this potential in a dedicated drop tower experiment, using a dual species interferometer which shall compare the free fall of ⁸⁷Rb and ³⁹K atoms. Here we present the current status of this experiment and discuss the perspectives and attainable sensitivity of such a free fall test in the Bremen Drop Tower. In addition we report on the development of metrological tools for this kind of experiment, i.e. operation of an optical frequency comb and optical cavities in the drop tower. The PRIMUS project is supported by the German Space Agency DLR with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under grant number DLR 50 WM 1142.

[1] T. van Zoest et al., "Bose-Einstein condensation in microgravity", Science, vol 328, no. 5985, p. 1540, 2010