Tailoring Multiloop Atom Interferometers with Adjustable Momentum Transfer

Area of Science:

• Quantum sensing
• Atomic interferometry
• Quantum optics

Background:

• Multiloop matter-wave interferometers are crucial for measuring physical quantity derivatives.
• Mirror imperfections in these interferometers generate spurious paths, corrupting measurement signals.
• Existing methods struggle to mitigate signal scrambling caused by these spurious paths.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a method of adjustable momentum transfer to prevent spurious path recombination in double-loop atom interferometers.
• To experimentally investigate the recombination conditions of spurious matter waves.
• To develop a more robust cold-atom gyroscope for measuring rotation rates.

Main Methods:

• Implementing adjustable momentum transfer in a double-loop atom interferometer.
• Experimentally studying matter-wave recombination conditions.
• Developing a model to account for atomic source coherence properties.
• Utilizing a cold-atom gyroscope setup.

Main Results:

• Adjustable momentum transfer effectively prevents spurious path recombination.
• Experimental recombination conditions are quantitatively supported by a coherence model.
• A single-shot acceleration sensitivity was suppressed by at least a factor of 50 in the developed gyroscope.

Conclusions:

• The demonstrated method significantly improves the fidelity of multiloop atom interferometers.
• This technique offers a viable solution for building high-precision cold-atom gyroscopes.
• The findings will influence the design of future multiloop atom interferometers for inertial sensing.