Tunneling Gravimetry

Abstract

We propose the application of matter-wave Fabry-Pérot interferometers to inertial sensing tasks. Our study explores such a tunneling-based sensor for the measurement of accelerations in two configurations: (a) a transmission setup, where the initial wave packet is transmitted through the cavity and (b) an out-tunneling scheme with intra-cavity generated initial states lacking a classical counterpart. We perform numerical simulations of the complete dynamics of the quantum wave packet, investigate the tunneling through a matter-wave cavity formed by realistic optical potentials and determine the impact of interactions between atoms. As a consequence we estimate the prospective sensitivities to inertial forces for both proposed configurations and show that they can serve as compact inertial sensors.