2011/03/31 by Alan O. Jamison, J. Nathan Kutz, Subhadeep Gupta · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomical interferometer #Atom interferometer #Bose–Einstein condensate #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Computational physics #Computer science #Envelope (radar) #Field (mathematics) #Interferometry #Mathematics #Measure (data warehouse) #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Reduction (mathematics) #Scaling #Simple (philosophy) #Statistical physics #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #cond-mat.quant-gas #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.84.043643
published as Phys. Rev. A 84, 043643 (2011) · 8 pages, 6 figures, revised based on reviewer comments
arxiv created 2011/08/26 · openalex publication_date 2011/10/28 · arxiv updated 2015/05/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present theoretical tools for predicting and reducing the effects of atomic interactions in Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) interferometry experiments. To address mean-field shifts during free propagation, we derive a robust scaling solution that reduces the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation to a set of three simple differential equations valid for any interaction strength. To model the other common components of a BEC interferometer---condensate splitting, manipulation, and recombination---we generalize the slowly varying envelope reduction, providing both analytic handles and dramatically improved simulations. Applying these tools to a BEC interferometer to measure the fine structure constant, \ensuremathα [S. Gupta, K. Dieckmann, Z. Hadzibabic, and D. E. Pritchard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 140401 (2002)], we find agreement with the results of the original experiment and demonstrate that atomic interactions do not preclude measurement to better than part-per-billion accuracy, even for atomic species with relatively large scattering lengths. These tools help make BEC interferometry a viable choice for a broad class of precision measurements.