Ultracold atom interferometry in space

Lachmann, Maike; Ahlers, Holger; Becker, Dennis; Dinkelaker, Aline N.; Grosse, Jens; Hellmig, Ortwin; Müntinga, Hauke; Schkolnik, Vladimir; Seidel, Stephan; Wendrich, Thijs; Wenzlawski, André; Weps, Benjamin; Gaaloul, Naceur; Lüdtke, Daniel; Braxmaier, Claus; Ertmer, W.; Krutzik, Markus; Lämmerzahl, Cláus; Peters, Achim; Schleich, Wolfgang P.; Sengstock, K.; Wicht, Andreas; Windpassinger, Patrick; Rasel, Ernst M.

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-21628-z

Cited by 68 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The promise of Cold Atom technologies for making precise experimental probes of topics in fundamental science such as general relativity, cosmology, quantum mechanics and the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model has been recognised in many terrestrial and space projects. To cite just a few examples: in the US the MAGIS 100 m atom interferometer is under construction at Fermilab [177] and NASA has operated the Cold Atom Lab (CAL) Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) experiment successfully for several years on the ISS [178,179]; in Europe the ELGAR project [180] has been proposed; initial funding has been provided for a suite of experiments applying Quantum Technology for fundamental physics in the UK, including the terrestrial AION atom interferometer [181]; in France the MIGA atom interferometer is under construction [182]; in Germany there is the VLBAI programme [183] and a series of BEC experiments in microgravity using MAIUS sounding rockets [184,185]; the STE-QUEST experiment has been proposed [186,187], following the success of the MICROSCOPE experiment [188,189] that made a pioneering test of the Equivalence Principle in space; and in China the terrestrial ZAIGA atom interferometer [190] is under construction and quantum correlations have been verified by the Micius satellite experiment [191] over distances exceeding a thousand km.…”

Section: Scientific Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold Atoms in Space: Community Workshop Summary and Proposed Road-Map

Alonso,

Alpigiani,

Altschul

et al. 2022

Preprint

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We summarize the discussions at a virtual Community Workshop on Cold Atoms in Space concerning the status of cold atom technologies, the prospective scientific and societal opportunities offered by their deployment in space, and the developments needed before cold atoms could be operated in space. The cold atom technologies discussed include atomic clocks, quantum gravimeters and accelerometers, and atom interferometers. Prospective applications include metrology, geodesy and measurement of terrestrial mass change due to, e.g., climate change, and fundamental science experiments such as tests of the equivalence principle, searches for dark matter, measurements of gravitational waves and tests of quantum mechanics. We review the current status of cold atom technologies and outline the requirements for their space qualification, including the development paths and the corresponding technical milestones, and identifying possible pathfinder missions to pave the way for missions to exploit the full potential of cold atoms in space. Finally, we present a first draft of a possible roadmap for achieving these goals, that we propose for discussion by the interested cold atom, Earth Observation, fundamental physics and other prospective scientific user communities, together with ESA and national space and research funding agencies. research areas. As anticipated for a Europe-based event, about 80% of the registrations are from European countries, as seen in the lower right panel of Fig. 1, but there is also significant North American and Asian participation.This community provides the backbone for long-term planning and the support needed to see the challenging cold atom missions foreseen in the road-map through to their successful completions. The participants display an excellent and diverse mix of expertise, building an outstanding basis for the success of the workshop and the development of the corresponding road-map, which defines possible interim and long-term scientific goals and outlines technological milestones. Section 2 is an introduction to our document, Sections 3 to 5 discuss our main science themes, namely atomic clocks, Earth Observation and fundamental physics, Section 6 discusses the technology developments required before quantum sensors can be deployed in space, Section 7 summarises the discussions during the Workshop, and in Section 8 we outline the corresponding Community road-map.

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Section: Scientific Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold Atoms in Space: Community Workshop Summary and Proposed Road-Map

Alonso,

Alpigiani,

Altschul

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Significant progress has been made in the area of optomechanical cavity cooling in recent years, thus making such sensitive experiments feasible [67][68][69] (for an extensive review of cavity optomechanics and its potential applications, see [70]). The construction of ultra-vacuum drop towers/tubes for microgravity experiments has proven to be a fruitful venture [71] and more recently, there have been successful attempts to implement matterwave interferometry experiments using BECs in space [72,73], ever since the realization of Bose-Einstein condensates aboard near-Earth orbit laboratories [74]. Of particular interest to the scientific community could be the realization of matter-wave interferometers with atoms in high Rydberg states [75,76].…”

Section: Outlook and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stern-Gerlach Interferometry for Tests of Quantum Gravity and General Applications

Lokare

2022

Front. Phys.

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Stern-Gerlach and/or matter-wave interferometry has garnered significant interest amongst members of the scientific community over the past few decades. Early theoretical results by Schwinger et al. demonstrate the fantastic precision capabilities required to realize a full-loop Stern-Gerlach interferometer, i.e., a Stern-Gerlach setup that houses the capability of recombining the split wave-packets in both, position and momentum space over a certain characteristic interferometric time. Over the years, several proposals have been put forward that seek to use Stern-Gerlach and/or matter-wave interferometry as a tool for a myriad of applications of general interest, some of which include tests for fundamental physics (viz., quantum wave-function collapse, stringent tests for the Einstein equivalence principle at the quantum scale, breaking the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) barrier, and so forth), precision sensing, quantum metrology, gravitational wave detection and inertial navigation. In addition, a large volume of work in the existing literature has been dedicated to the possibility of using matter-wave interferometry for tests of quantum gravity. Inspired by the developments in this timely research field, this Perspective attempts to provide a general overview of the theory involved, the challenges that are yet to be addressed and a brief outlook on what lays ahead.

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“…Deployment of these experiments in a microgravity environment would enable both fundamental research and promise enhanced performance for practical applications in navigation and earth observation. In this context, generation and coherent manipulation of cold atom ensembles and Bose-Einstein condensates have already been demonstrated in microgravity environments including orbiting platforms such as parabolic flights [57,58], drop-towers [59,60], sounding rockets [61,62], and now even on Tiangong-2 [63] and the ISS [64]. Further launches to ISS are planned such as the ACES/PHARAO atomic clock [65], or the dual-species atomic experiment facility BECCAL [66].…”

Section: B Laser-cooled Atomic Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%