Freiburg 2024 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 56: Poster VII

Q 56.7: Poster

Thursday, March 14, 2024, 17:00–19:00, KG I Foyer

Demonstration of a well-controlled atomic source for Very Long Baseline Atom Interferometry — •Dorothee Tell, Vishu Gupta, Kai Grensemann, Ernst M. Rasel, and Dennis Schlippert — Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Quantenoptik

The sensitivity of an atom interferometer measuring the acceleration of a freely falling atomic ensemble can be increased by scaling up the available free fall time. At the Hannover Very Long Baseline Atom Interferometry (VLBAI) facility, we have set up a 10 m long baseline for fountain interferometry with up to 2.4 s of free fall. This promises highly accurate measurements of gravitational accelerations for gravimetry, but also offers several possibilities to test fundamental physics, e. g. at the interface of quantum mechanics and general relativity. However a high level of control over all systematic effects and noise sources is necessary.

This contribution focuses on the source of rubidium Bose-Einstein condensates recently installed in the facility to complete the setup. We demonstrate how the strict constraints necessary for the operation of a highly accurate inertial sensor can be realized. This comprises a fast all-optical evaporation sequence, flexible methods for manipulating the atoms in a time-averaged optical dipole trap e. g. for reducing the expansion speed during free fall, and methods for a well-controlled, efficient launch of the atoms into the baseline based on an accelerated Bloch lattice.

Keywords: Bose-Einstein condensates; Atom Interferometry; Quantum Sensing; Gravimetry