Interferometry with Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity

Matter-wave sensors are considered to be one of the most promising fields for progress in metrology and fundamental tests. We report on the development of a miniaturized and robust experiment within the QUANTUS collaboration using ultra cold atoms in a free fall environment as a test-bed for matter-wave interferometry on long timescales. Over 200 experiments in microgravity have been performed so far at the ZARM drop tower in Bremen and a BEC was observed after expansion times of up to 1s [1]. The combination of long expansion times and low density samples is beneficial for the application in interferometry. We present the recently implemented interferometer in our chip-based 87Rb BEC experiment including on-chip state preparation. Bragg diffraction is used for coherent manipulation, realizing different interferometer schemes. First results on ground and in microgravity are shown.

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