Matter Wave Interferometry in Microgravity
- Paper number
IAC-09.A2.1.6
- Author
Mr. Stephan Tobias Seidel, Leibniz Universiät Hannover, Germany
- Coauthor
Dr. Ernst Maria Rasel, Leibniz Universiät Hannover, Germany
- Year
2009
- Abstract
The successful demonstration of Bose-Einstein-Condensation in microgravity in 2007 opens the way to realize an atom interferometer operated in the unique environment of weightlessness. Within the project QUANTUS (Quantum systems under microgravity) we plan to build an atom interferometer based on a BEC of Rubidium 87 which will be operated at the drop tower at ZARM in Bremen. The apparatus can produce a BEC of 104 at nK from 107 thermal atoms at 20μK, which will permit to realize interferometry with a coherent evolution on a timescale up to 1 second. The atom interferometer is designed as a Mach-Zehnder-interferometer with Bragg-scattering as a coherent beam splitter mechanism. The QUANTUS project is a collaboration of the U Hamburg, U Ulm, HU Berlin, MPQ Munich, ZARM at U Bremen, and the LU Hanover. It is supported by the German Space Agency DLR with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under grant number DLR 50 WM 0346.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)