Long-time atom interferometry for precision tests of fundamental physics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Light-pulse atom interferometry is a technique that is exquisitely sensitive to inertial forces. As such, it has exciting applications both in fundamental physics for precision tests of gravity, electrodynamics and quantum mechanics, as well as in practical situations for inertial navigation, geodesy, and timekeeping. In this work, I describe a 10 meter atomic fountain, designed for a precision test of the weak equivalence principle but with additional relevance in bounding proposed modifications of quantum mechanics, directly measuring general relativistic corrections, and detecting gravitational waves. This system is demonstrated to have the largest acceleration sensitivity to date by two orders of magnitude (6.7e-12 g). I also present precision measurements of Earth's rotation, the preparation of ultracold clouds to picokelvin effective temperatures, and current work to further improve the acceleration sensitivity through meter-scale separation between two halves of the atomic wavepacket. I close with a discussion of the next step towards an equivalence principle test: the creation of a well-overlapped, dual-species ultracold cloud.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Dickerson, Susannah Moore |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics. |
| Primary advisor | Kasevich, Mark A |
| Thesis advisor | Kasevich, Mark A |
| Thesis advisor | Mabuchi, Hideo |
| Thesis advisor | Michelson, Peter F |
| Advisor | Mabuchi, Hideo |
| Advisor | Michelson, Peter F |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Susannah Moore Dickerson. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Susannah Moore Dickerson
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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