skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


This content will become publicly available on June 6, 2026

Title: Vector atom accelerometry in an optical lattice
Two kinds of multidimensional atom interferometers are demonstrated that are capable of measuring both the magnitude and direction of applied inertial forces. These interferometers, built from ultracold Bose-Einstein condensed rubidium atoms, use an original design that operates entirely within the Bloch bands of an optical lattice. Through time-dependent lattice position control, we realize Bloch oscillations in two dimensions and a vector atomic Michelson interferometer. Fits to the observed Bloch oscillations demonstrate the measurement of an applied acceleration of 2galong two axes, wheregis Earth’s gravitational acceleration. For the Michelson interferometer, we perform Bayesian inferencing from a 49-channel output by repeating experiments for two-axis accelerations and demonstrate vector parameter estimation. Accelerations can be measured from single experimental runs and do not require repeated shots to construct a fringe. The performance of our device is near the quantum limit for the interferometer size and quantum detection efficiency of the atoms.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2207963
PAR ID:
10649282
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Science Advances
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Science Advances
Volume:
11
Issue:
23
ISSN:
2375-2548
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Journal of the Optical Society of America B)
    Extreme skin depth engineering (e-skid) can be applied to integrated photonics to manipulate the evanescent field of a waveguide. Here we demonstrate thate-skidcan be implemented in two directions in order to deterministically engineer the evanescent wave allowing for dense integration with enhanced functionalities. In particular, by increasing the skin depth, we enable the creation of two-dimensional (2D)e-skiddirectional couplers with large gaps and operational bandwidth. Here we experimentally validate 2De-skidfor integrated photonics in a complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) photonics foundry and demonstrate strong coupling with a gap of 1.44 µm. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
    We describe the confining instabilities of a proposed quantum spin liquid underlying the pseudogap metal state of the hole-doped cuprates. The spin liquid can be described by a SU(2) gauge theory ofNf= 2 massless Dirac fermions carrying fundamental gauge charges—this is the low-energy theory of a mean-field state of fermionic spinons moving on the square lattice withπ-flux per plaquette in the ℤ2center of SU(2). This theory has an emergent SO(5)fglobal symmetry and is presumed to confine at low energies to the Néel state. At nonzero doping (or smaller Hubbard repulsionUat half-filling), we argue that confinement occurs via the Higgs condensation of bosonic chargons carrying fundamental SU(2) gauge charges also moving inπℤ2-flux. At half-filling, the low-energy theory of the Higgs sector hasNb= 2 relativistic bosons with a possible emergent SO(5)bglobal symmetry describing rotations between ad-wave superconductor, period-2 charge stripes, and the time-reversal breaking “d-density wave” state. We propose a conformal SU(2) gauge theory withNf= 2 fundamental fermions,Nb= 2 fundamental bosons, and a SO(5)f×SO(5)bglobal symmetry, which describes a deconfined quantum critical point between a confining state which breaks SO(5)fand a confining state which breaks SO(5)b. The pattern of symmetry breaking within both SO(5)s is determined by terms likely irrelevant at the critical point, which can be chosen to obtain a transition between Néel order andd-wave superconductivity. A similar theory applies at nonzero doping and largeU, with longer-range couplings of the chargons leading to charge order with longer periods. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Physical Review Research)
    Performing interferometry in an optical lattice formed by standing waves of light offers potential advantages over its free-space equivalents since the atoms can be confined and manipulated by the optical potential. We demonstrate such an interferometer in a one-dimensional lattice and show the ability to control the atoms by imaging and reconstructing the wave function at many stages during its cycle. An acceleration signal is applied, and the resulting performance is seen to be close to the optimum possible for the time-space area enclosed according to quantum theory. Our methodology of machine design enables the sensor to be reconfigurable on the fly, and when scaled up, offers the potential to make state-of-the art inertial and gravitational sensors that will have a wide range of potential applications. Published by the American Physical Society2024 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; (, Applied Optics)
    We discuss the design of quantum hybrid inertial sensor that combines an optomechanical inertial sensor with the retroreflector of a cold atom interferometer. This sensor fusion approach provides absolute and high-accuracy measurements with cold atom interferometers, while utilizing the optomechanical inertial sensor at frequencies above the repetition rate of the atom interferometer. This improves the overall measurement bandwidth as well as the robustness and field deployment capabilities of these systems. We evaluate which parameters yield an optimal acceleration sensitivity, from which we anticipate a noise floor at nano- g levels from DC to 1 kHz. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, Nature)
    Despite being the dominant force of nature on large scales, gravity remains relatively elusive to precision laboratory experiments. Atom interferometers are powerful tools for investigating, for example, Earth’s gravity, the gravitational constant, deviations from Newtonian gravity and general relativity. However, using atoms in free fall limits measurement time to a few seconds, and much less when measuring interactions with a small source mass. Recently, interferometers with atoms suspended for 70 s in an optical-lattice mode filtered by an optical cavity have been demonstrated. However, the optical lattice must balance Earth’s gravity by applying forces that are a billionfold stronger than the putative signals, so even tiny imperfections may generate complex systematic effects. Thus, lattice interferometers have yet to be used for precision tests of gravity. Here we optimize the gravitational sensitivity of a lattice interferometer and use a system of signal inversions to suppress and quantify systematic efects. We measure the attraction of a miniature source mass to be amass = 33.3 ± 5.6stat ± 2.7syst nm s−2, consistent with Newtonian gravity, ruling out ‘screened ffth force’ theories3,15,16 over their natural parameter space. The overall accuracy of 6.2 nm s−2 surpasses by more than a factor of four the best similar measurements with atoms in free fall. Improved atom cooling and tilt-noise suppression may further increase sensitivity for investigating forces at sub-millimetre ranges, compact gravimetry, measuring the gravitational Aharonov–Bohm effect and the gravitational constant, and testing whether the gravitational field has quantum properties. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email