Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 7: Precision Measurements and Metrology I (with A)

Q 7.4: Talk

Monday, March 23, 2015, 12:15–12:30, G/gHS

The effect of wavefront aberrations in atom interferometry — •Bastian Leykauf, Vladimir Schkolnik, Matthias Hauth, Christian Freier, and Achim Peters — Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Physik, Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin

Wavefront aberrations are a large source of uncertainty in current atom interferometers. We present the results of a numerical and experimental analysis based on measured aberrations of optical windows.

The numerical method is based on a simple model of atoms moving along classical trajectories and takes into account parameters such as the size and temperature of the atomic cloud. Despite its simplicity the method is able to faithfully predict the shift of the interferometer phase caused by wavefront aberrations of the beam.

Aberrations of several windows were analyzed with a Shack-Hartmann sensor and the phase bias numerically calculated for a range of experimental parameters. To verify these results, windows with known aberrations were inserted into the beam path of the atomic gravimeter GAIN and their effect on the measured value of the gravitational acceleration g was observed and compared with theory.

The method can be used to pre-select windows and reduce the error by one order of magnitude by post-correcting the measured value of g. We will also present our progress in characterizing the influence of the other contributing optics in the beam path on the wavefront.
Schkolnik et al. The effect of wavefront aberrations in atom interferometry. ArXiv pre-prints (arXiv:1411.7914). Nov. 2014.