Atom-Interferometric Test of the Equivalence Principle at the 10−12 Level

Inertial sensing with quantum gases: a comparative performance study of condensed versus thermal sources for atom interferometry

“…Experiments based on the interference of freely falling atoms measure accelerations [1,13], rotations [14][15][16][17][18], gravity gradients [19,20], determine fundamental constants [2,21,22], perform tests of fundamental physics [2,3,[22][23][24][25][26][27], and are proposed for the detection of gravitational waves [4,[28][29][30][31]. A recent review of the advances in the field of inertial sensing collects most relevant experiments and proposals so far [1,32].…”

“…In [26], a dual-species WEP test with 85 Rb and 87 Rb reaches a statistical uncertainty of η = 0.8 × 10 −8 and is limited by systematic effects, e.g., the Coriolis effect to η = (2.8 ± 3.0) × 10 −8 . Most recently, this limit has been pushed further down to η = 1.6 ± 5.2 × 10 −12 [3]. The STE-QUEST mission [52] aims at testing the WEP at the 10 −15 level and beyond by measuring the differential acceleration of a 87 Rb BEC and a 41 K BEC over a total mission time of 5 years [53].…”

“…Atom interferometers are mainly used for inertially sensitive measurements [1] and a variety of tests of fundamental physics [2,3]. Key levers to increase the sensitivity are the transfer of a large number of photons during the beam-splitting processes, extending the time of free fall while maintaining contrast and atomic flux.…”

Multi-loop atomic Sagnac interferometry

“…5 to 14 ) by a factor of below the shot-noise limit ( ) for the scenarios in the lower rows of Table 1 . We assume for a typical experiment control system 31 , Earth’s gravity gradient , and rad/s using Earth’s rotation rate as an upper limit 50 , 51 . Limited by the velocity acceptance of the beam splitter 41 , 43 .…”

Otto Stern’s Legacy in Quantum Optics: Matter Waves and Deflectometry

“…Atom interferometry is now a thriving field of physics with applications ranging from precision tests of fundamental physics to quantum metrology, geodesy and inertial navigation. Some noteworthy applications include the measurement of the Earth's gravity [12], the gravitational constant G [13], tests of the weak equivalence principle and the universality of free-fall [14], measurements of the fine structure constant [15] and rotation sensing [16,17]. Interferometry experiments have also been proposed for gravitational wave detection [18] and for dark matter [19] and dark energy [20,21] searches.…”