Atom interferometry in space: Thermal management and magnetic shielding

Abstract

Atom interferometry is an exciting tool to probe fundamental physics. It is considered especially apt to test the universality of free fall by using two different sorts of atoms. The increasing sensitivity required for this kind of experiment sets severe requirements on its environments, instrument control, and systematic effects. This can partially be mitigated by going to space as was proposed, for example, in the Spacetime Explorer and Quantum Equivalence Principle Space Test (STE-QUEST) mission. However, the requirements on the instrument are still very challenging. For example, the specifications of the STE-QUEST mission imply that the Feshbach coils of the atom interferometer are allowed to change their radius only by about 260 nm or 2.6·10 −4 % due to thermal expansion although they consume an average power of 22 W. Also Earth's magnetic field has to be suppressed by a factor of 10 5 . We show in this article that with the right design such thermal and magnetic requirements can indeed be met and that these are not an impediment for the exciting physics possible with atom interferometers in space.

STE-QUEST—test of the universality of free fall using cold atom interferometry

“…This also impedes the overlap during the time between release from the optical trap and the delta kick and requires on magnetic field gradients below 3 µG m −1 . Efficient suppression of external fields is shown in [70].…”

Corrigendum: STE-QUEST—test of the universality of free fall using cold atom interferometry (2014 Class. Quantum Grav . 31 115010)

“…This also impedes the overlap during the time between release from the optical trap and the delta kick and requires on magnetic field gradients below 3 μG m −1 . Efficient suppression of external fields is shown in [70].…”

Production of large Bose-Einstein condensates in a magnetic-shield-compatible hybrid trap

“…Conversely, the mixture composed of the ground hyperfine states |1, ±1 of 23 Na allows to devise a stable system of two BECs, perfectly overlapped in trap and characterized by a clear separation between density and spin dynamics [27,28], thanks to its favorable interaction properties, but requires to work in conditions of high magnetic field stability to preserve the internal states coherence for a sufficiently long time to study its dynamics. Similar requirements characterize many different physical systems: a few examples include experiments in electron microscopy [29], nuclear magnetic resonance [30], ultracold atoms [31][32][33], atomic magnetometry [34] and atom interferometry [35][36][37][38][39][40][41].…”