Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 8: Poster

GR 8.5: Poster

Wednesday, March 2, 2016, 17:30–19:00, VMP6 Foyer

General Relativistic Corrections for Free Falling Bose-Einstein Condensates in Fermi Coordinates — •Oliver Gabel and Reinhold Walser — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Hochschulstr. 4a, 64289 Darmstadt

Measuring general relativistic effects in the gravitational field of the Earth is a main goal of current research in atom interferometry. In this context, the QUANTUS collaboration is aiming at a test of the Einstein equivalence principle for quantum matter, having demonstrated Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and interferometry in free fall [1,2].

In this contribution, we show how free falling BECs can be described at the mean-field level in terms of the non-linear Klein-Gordon equation and Fermi normal coordinates. We study the arising frame-dependent corrections to Newtonian physics in Schwarzschild space-time as well as in a parametrised post-Newtonian setting for different centre-of-mass world lines.

[1] T. van Zoest et. al., Bose-Einstein Condensation in Microgravity, Science, 328, 1540 (2010).

[2] H. Müntinga et. al., Interferometry with Bose-Einstein Condensates in Microgravity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 093602 (2013).