Nassim Zahzam

Detecting inertial effects with airborne matter-wave interferometry

Inertial sensors relying on atom interferometry offer a breakthrough advance in a variety of applications, such as inertial navigation, gravimetry or ground- and space-based tests of fundamental physics. These instruments require a quiet environment to reach their performance and using them outside the laboratory remains a challenge. Here we report the first operation of an airborne matter-wave accelerometer set up aboard a 0g plane and operating during the standard gravity (1g) and microgravity (0g) phases of the flight. At 1g, the sensor can detect inertial effects more than 300 times weaker than the typical acceleration fluctuations of the aircraft. We describe the improvement of the interferometer sensitivity in 0g, which reaches 2 x 10-4 ms-2 / √Hz with our current setup. We finally discuss the extension of our method to airborne and spaceborne tests of the Universality of free fall with matter waves.

Atom-molecule collisions in an optically trapped gas.

Cold inelastic collisions between confined cesium (Cs) atoms and Cs2 molecules are investigated inside a CO2 laser dipole trap. Inelastic atom-molecule collisions can be observed and measured with a rate coefficient of approximately 2.6 x 10(-11) cm3 s(-1), mainly independent of the molecular rovibrational state populated. Lifetimes of purely atomic and molecular samples are essentially limited by rest gas collisions. The pure molecular trap lifetime ranges 0.3-1 s, 4 times smaller than the atomic one, as is also observed in a pure magnetic trap. We give an estimation of the inelastic molecule-molecule collision rate to be approximately 10(-11) cm3 s(-1).

Simultaneous dual-species matter-wave accelerometer

We report the realization of a matter-wave interferometer based on Raman transitions which simultaneously interrogates two different atomic species (

Light-pulse atom interferometry in microgravity

^{87}

Dual-wavelength laser source for onboard atom interferometry

Rb and

Compact cold atom gravimeter for field applications

^{85}

Local gravity measurement with the combination of atom interferometry and Bloch oscillations

Rb). The simultaneous aspect of our experiment presents encouraging preliminary results for future dual-species atom interferometry projects and seems very promising by taking advantage of a differential acceleration measurement. Indeed the resolution of our differential accelerometer remains lower than

Back and forth transfer and coherent coupling in a cold Rydberg dipole gas

3.9\times 10^{-8}g

Characterization of a simultaneous dual-species atom interferometer for a quantum test of the weak equivalence principle

even with vibration levels up to

Phase shift in an atom interferometer induced by the additional laser lines of a Raman laser generated by modulation

1\times10^{-3}g