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Detection of Applied and Ambient Forces with a Matterwave Magnetic-Gradiometer (1707.07600v2)
Published 24 Jul 2017 in physics.atom-ph
Abstract: An atom interferometer using a Bose-Einstein condensate of ${87}$Rb atoms is utilized for the measurement of magnetic field gradients. Composite optical pulses are used to construct a spatially symmetric Mach-Zehnder geometry. Using a biased interferometer we demonstrate the ability to measure small residual forces in our system at the position of the atoms. These are a residual magnetic field gradient of 15$\pm$2 mG/cm and and an inertial acceleration of 0.08$\pm$0.02 m/s$2$. Our method has important applications in the calibration of precision measurement devices and the reduction of systematic errors.