Geometric phase amplification in a clock interferometer for enhanced metrology
Abstract: High-precision measurements are crucial for testing the fundamental laws of nature and for advancing the technological frontier. Clock interferometry, where particles with an internal clock are coherently split and recombined along two spatial paths, has sparked significant interest due to its fundamental implications, especially at the intersection of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Here, we demonstrate that a clock interferometer provides metrological improvement with respect to its technical-noise-limited counterpart employing a single internal quantum state. This enhancement around a critical working point can be interpreted as a geometric-phase-induced signal-to-noise ratio gain. In our experimental setup, we infer a precision enhancement of 8.8 decibels when measuring a small difference between external fields. We estimate that tens of decibels of precision enhancement could be attained for measurements with a higher atom flux. This opens the door to the development of a superior probe for fundamental physics as well as a high-performance sensor for various technological applications.
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