Ramsey interferometry with trapped motional quantum states

• Published in: Communications physics 2018-06, Vol.1 (1), Article 29
• Main Authors: Hu, Dong, Niu, Linxiao, Jin, Shengjie, Chen, Xuzong, Dong, Guangjiong, Schmiedmayer, Jörg, Zhou, Xiaoji
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/766/119/2791; 639/766/36/1125; 639/766/483/3924; Band theory; Coherence; Interferometers; Interferometry; Matter waves; Optical lattices; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Qubits (quantum computing)
• ISSN: 2399-3650; 2399-3650
• DOI: 10.1038/s42005-018-0030-7

Ramsey interferometers using internal electronic or nuclear states find wide applications in science and engineering. We develop a matter wave Ramsey interferometer for trapped motional quantum states exploiting the s - and d -bands of an optical lattice and study it both experimentally and theoretically, identifying the different de-phasing and de-coherence mechanisms. Implementing a band echo technique, employing repeated π -pulses we suppress the de-phasing evolution and significantly increase the coherence time of the trapped state interferometer by one order of magnitude. Thermal fluctuations are the main mechanism for the remaining decay of the contrast. Our demonstration of an echo-Ramsey interferometer with trapped quantum states in an optical lattice has potential application in the study of quantum many-body lattice dynamics, and motional qubits manipulation. Ramsey interferometers are used as a general tool of spectroscopy and matter wave interferometry. The authors demonstrate an echo- Ramsey interferometer that uses trapped quantum states in an optical lattice as a new tool to study coherence in many body quantum systems.