Spin-Orbit-Coupled Interferometry with Ring-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates

Helm, J. L.; Billam, T. P.; Rakonjac, A.; Cornish, S. L.; Gardiner, S. A.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.120.063201

Spin-Orbit-Coupled Interferometry with Ring-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates

Helm, J. L.; Billam, T. P.; Rakonjac, A.; Cornish, S. L.; Gardiner, S. A.

Authors

J. L. Helm

T. P. Billam

A. Rakonjac

Professor Simon Cornish s.l.cornish@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Professor Simon Gardiner s.a.gardiner@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

We propose a method of atom interferometry using a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate with a timevarying magnetic field acting as a coherent beam splitter. Our protocol creates long-lived superpositional counterflow states, which are of fundamental interest and can be made sensitive to both the Sagnac effect and magnetic fields on the sub-μG scale. We split a ring-trapped condensate, initially in the mf ¼ 0 hyperfine state, into superpositions of internal mf ¼ 1 states and condensate superflow, which are spinorbit coupled. After interrogation, the relative phase accumulation can be inferred from a population transfer to the mf ¼ 1 states. The counterflow generation protocol is adiabatically deterministic and does not rely on coupling to additional optical fields or mechanical stirring techniques. Our protocol can maximize the classical Fisher information for any rotation, magnetic field, or interrogation time and so has the maximum sensitivity available to uncorrelated particles. Precision can increase with the interrogation time and so is limited only by the lifetime of the condensate.

Citation

Helm, J., Billam, T., Rakonjac, A., Cornish, S., & Gardiner, S. (2018). Spin-Orbit-Coupled Interferometry with Ring-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates. Physical Review Letters, 120(6), Article 063201. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.120.063201

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jan 10, 2018
Online Publication Date	Feb 6, 2018
Publication Date	Feb 9, 2018
Deposit Date	Feb 22, 2018
Publicly Available Date	Feb 22, 2018
Journal	Physical Review Letters
Print ISSN	0031-9007
Electronic ISSN	1079-7114
Publisher	American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	120
Issue	6
Article Number	063201
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.120.063201

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Copyright Statement
Reprinted with permission from the American Physical Society: Helm, J. L., Billam, T. P., Rakonjac, A., Cornish, S. L. & Gardiner, S. A. (2018). Spin-Orbit-Coupled Interferometry with Ring-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates. Physical Review Letters 120(6): 063201 © 2018 American Physical Society by the American Physical Society. Readers may view, browse, and/or download material for temporary copying purposes only, provided these uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. Except as provided by law, this material may not be further reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, adapted, performed, displayed, published, or sold in whole or part, without prior written permission from the American Physical Society.