High precision atom interferometry in a microgravity environment
| dc.creator | Sleator, Tycho | |
| dc.creator | Berman, Paul R. | |
| dc.creator | Dubetsky, Boris | |
| dc.date | 1999-05-22 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T05:57:01Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T05:57:01Z | |
| dc.description | We propose a set of experiments in which Ramsey-fringe techniques are tailored to probe transitions originating and terminating on the same ground state level. When pulses of resonant radiation, separated by a time delay $% T, $ interact with atoms, it is possible to produce Ramsey fringes having widths of order 1/T. If each pulse contains two counterpropagating travelling wave modes, the atomic wave function is split into two or more components having different center-of-mass momenta. Matter-wave interference of these components leads to atomic gratings, which have been observed in both spatially separated fields and time separated fields. Time-dependent signals can be transformed into frequency dependent signals, leading to ground state Ramsey fringes (GSRF). The signals can be used to probe many problems of fundamental importance: a precise measurement of the earth gravitational acceleration $g$ and residual gravity in a microgravity environment with an accuracy $6 10^{-9}g;$ the rotation rate measurement with an accuracy of 6 10^{-3} deg/h; the recoil frequency measurement. Since only transitions originating and terminating on the same ground state are involved, frequency measurements can be carried out using lasers phase-locked by quartz oscillators having relatively low frequency. Our technique may allow one to increase the precision by a factor of 100 (the rf- to quartz oscillator frequencies ratio) over previous experiments based on Raman-Ramsey fringes or reduce on the same factor requirements for frequency stabilization. | |
| dc.description | 12 pages, 17 figures,latex. To be published in the proceedings of 1999 NASA/JPL International Conference on Fundamental Physics | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9905047 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9905047 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/87829 | |
| dc.subject | Atomic Physics | |
| dc.title | High precision atom interferometry in a microgravity environment | |
| dc.type | text |