Bulletin of the American Physical Society
52nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Volume 66, Number 6
Monday–Friday, May 31–June 4 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session X01: Focus Session: AMO Tests of RelativityFocus Live
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Chair: Alex Sushkov, BU |
Friday, June 4, 2021 8:00AM - 8:30AM Live |
X01.00001: Witnessing Quantum gravity in a laboratory via miniaturist quantum accelerator Invited Speaker: Anupam Mazumdar Unveiling the nature of spacetime remains one of the final frontiers of modern theoretical physics. I will discuss how to witness the quantum nature of gravity in a table-top experiment by creating the right witness involving the two neutral masses (spin embedded) undergoing through the Stern-Gerlach apparatus. I will discuss various challenges involved in pursuing the dream of witnessing graviton and the critical challenges. There are many challenges to be met and I will discuss the important ones: (1) To create a macroscopic quantum superposition of heavy masses via the Stern-Gerlach setup while controlling the stray gravitational acceleration and the gravity gradient noise, (2) Precise constraints on the magnetic field/current such that various electromagnetic interactions are under control, (3) Vacuum dominated Casimir effect which will create the main background for the experiment, (4) Constraints on vacuum and temperatures, (5) Feasibility of the experiment in a drop-tower, (6) The material properties and patch potentials. I will briefly discuss time scales for realising such an accelerator which will witness for the first time the graviton in a terrestrial laboratory. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 8:30AM - 9:00AM Live |
X01.00002: Testing relativity with optical clocks Invited Speaker: Christian Sanner State-of-the-art optical atomic clocks reach fractional frequency uncertainties at the 1e-18 level. These accurate quantum sensors make it possible to test fundamental physics with unprecedented precision. I will report on recent tests of relativity with ytterbium ion optical clocks at PTB that led to hundredfold improved spacetime anisotropy limits and twentyfold improved limits for fractional temporal variations of the fine structure constant. Furthermore, I will present experimental results obtained on the Fermi gas Sr optical clock platform at JILA that open up a new path to quantum engineering of spontaneous decay, one of the fundamental decoherence mechanisms affecting optical clock performance. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 9:00AM - 9:12AM Live |
X01.00003: Atom-Interferometric Test of the Equivalence Principle at the 10-12 Level Chris Overstreet, Peter Asenbaum, Minjeong Kim, Joseph Curti, Mark Kasevich We use a dual-species atom interferometer with 2 s of free-fall time to measure the relative acceleration between 85Rb and 87Rb wave packets in the Earth's gravitational field. Systematic errors arising from kinematic differences between the isotopes are suppressed by calibrating the angles and frequencies of the interferometry beams. We find an Eötvös parameter of η = [1.6 +/- 1.8 (stat) +/- 3.4 (syst)] x 10-12, consistent with zero violation of the equivalence principle. With a resolution of up to 1.4 x 10-11 g per shot, we demonstrate a sensitivity to η of 5.4 x 10-11 / (Hz)1/2. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 9:12AM - 9:24AM Live |
X01.00004: Improved Limits for Violations of Local Position Invariance from Atomic Clock Comparisons Richard Lange, Nils Huntemann, Johannes Rahm, Christian Sanner, Hu Shao, Burghard Lipphardt, Christian Tamm, Stefan Weyers, Ekkehard Peik We present data from precision frequency comparisons between two primary Cs fountain clocks and two optical clocks based on both an electric quadrupole (E2) and an electric octupole (E3) transition of single trapped Ytterbium ions at PTB. We measured the E3 transition frequency at 642 THz with 80 mHz uncertainty, the most accurate determination of an optical transition frequency to date. Furthermore, the frequency ratio of E2 and E3 transition has been determined with 3×10-17 fractional uncertainty, improving upon previous measurements by an order of magnitude. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 9:24AM - 9:36AM Live |
X01.00005: The Science of NASA’s Cold Atom Lab Operating Onboard the ISS Jason Williams, Kamal Oudrhiri, Robert Thompson The Cold Atom Lab (CAL) launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2018, and has been operating since that time as the world’s first multi-user facility for the study of ultra-cold atoms in space. The unique microgravity environment of the ISS is utilized with CAL by a national group of principal investigators to achieve exceptionally low temperature gases, to study and utilize their quantum properties in an environment free from the perturbing force of gravity, and to observe and interact with these gases in the essentially limitless free-fall of orbit. In addition to the toolbox of capabilities built into CAL for controlling the properties and interactions among the atoms, an upgrade in 2020 also enabled the study of atom interferometry in orbit. We will give an overview of the pioneering, microgravity enabled quantum gas research explored with CAL to date and discuss near-term projects to study dual-species gases using both rubidium and potassium quantum gases in CAL. The impact from this work, and potential for follow-on studies, will also be reviewed in the context of future space-based fundamental physics missions. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 9:36AM - 9:48AM Live |
X01.00006: Modelling Gravitational Noise from Background Particles in Atom Interferometry Jonathan Kunjummen, Daniel Carney, Jacob Taylor As atom interferometers increase their extent in space and time, the increased sensitivity demands analysis of new noise sources, for example noise from uncontrolled gravitating background particles. Modelling this noise with the standard collisional decoherence theory presents two challenges: first, the standard collisional decoherence formula diverges for 1/r interactions, and second, collisional decoherence fails to incorporate the equivalence principle, thus overestimating the effect of far away bath particles. Here we analyze a model of atom interferometry in the presence of a gravitating bath that explicitly includes the effect of the bath on the control apparatus, not just the atoms, doing all calculations in a finite-time framework to avoid unphysical divergences. We find the bath phase space can be usefully separated into two sectors: far away particles, which give rise to a stochastic spacetime curvature background, and a collision cone which causes decoherence "events" localized in time. We comment on prospects for observing gravitational noise from each bath phase space sector. |
Friday, June 4, 2021 9:48AM - 10:00AM Live |
X01.00007: Space-borne Atom Interferometry for Tests of General Relativity Sina Loriani, Christian Schubert, Dennis Schlippert, Wolfgang Ertmer, Franck Pereira Dos Santos, Ernst M Rasel, Naceur Gaaloul, Peter Wolf Quantum sensors based on the interference of matter waves provide an exceptional access to test the postulates of general relativity by comparing the free-fall acceleration of matter waves of different composition. Space-borne quantum tests of the universality of free fall (UFF) promise to exploit the full potential of these sensors due to long free-fall times, and to reach unprecedented performance beyond current limits set by classical experiments. |
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