No Arabic abstract
Quantum metrology deals with improving the resolution of instruments that are otherwise limited by shot noise and it is therefore a promising avenue for enabling scientific breakthroughs. The advantage can be even more striking when quantum enhancement is combined with correlation techniques among several devices. Here, we present and realize a correlation interferometry scheme exploiting bipartite quantum correlated states injected in two independent interferometers. The scheme outperforms classical analogues in detecting a faint signal that may be correlated/uncorrelated between the two devices. We also compare its sensitivity with that obtained for a pair of two independent squeezed modes, each addressed to one interferometer, for detecting a correlated stochastic signal in the MHz frequency band. Being the simpler solution, it may eventually find application to fundamental physics tests, e.g., searching for the effects predicted by some Planck scale theories.
We use two-dimensional transverse laser cooling to produce an ultracold beam of YbF molecules. Through experiments and numerical simulations, we study how the cooling is influenced by the polarization configuration, laser intensity, laser detuning and applied magnetic field. The ultracold part of the beam contains more than $2 times 10^5$ molecules per shot and has a temperature below 200 $mu$K, and the cooling yields a 300-fold increase in the brightness of the beam. The method can improve the precision of experiments that use molecules to test fundamental physics. In particular, the beam is suitable for measuring the electron electric dipole moment with a statistical precision better than $10^{-30}$ e cm.
In this paper, we investigate the phase sensitivities in two-path optical interferometry with asymmetric beam splitters. Here, we present the optimal conditions for the transmission ratio and the phase of the beam splitter to gain the highest sensitivities for a general class of non-classical states with parity symmetry. Additionally, we address the controversial question of whether the scheme with a combination of coherent state and photon-added or photon-subtracted squeezed vacuum state is better or worse than the most celebrated one using a combination of coherent state and squeezed vacuum state.
The low-energy, long-lived isomer in $^{229}$Th, first studied in the 1970s as an exotic feature in nuclear physics, continues to inspire a multidisciplinary community of physicists. Using the nuclear resonance frequency, determined by the strong and electromagnetic interactions inside the nucleus, it is possible to build a highly precise nuclear clock that will be fundamentally different from all other atomic clocks based on resonant frequencies of the electron shell. The nuclear clock will open opportunities for highly sensitive tests of fundamental principles of physics, particularly in searches for violations of Einsteins equivalence principle and for new particles and interactions beyond the standard model. It has been proposed to use the nuclear clock to search for variations of the electromagnetic and strong coupling constants and for dark matter searches. The $^{229}$Th nuclear optical clock still represents a major challenge in view of the tremendous gap of nearly 17 orders of magnitude between the present uncertainty in the nuclear transition frequency and the natural linewidth. Significant experimental progress has been achieved in recent years, which will be briefly reviewed. Moreover, a research strategy will be outlined to consolidate our present knowledge about essential $^{229rm{m}}$Th properties, to determine the nuclear transition frequency with laser spectroscopic precision, realize different types of nuclear clocks and apply them in precision frequency comparisons with optical atomic clocks to test fundamental physics. Two avenues will be discussed: laser-cooled trapped $^{229}$Th ions that allow experiments with complete control on the nucleus-electron interaction and minimal systematic frequency shifts, and Th-doped solids enabling experiments at high particle number and in different electronic environments.
The fundamental quantum interferometry bound limits the sensitivity of an interferometer for a given total rate of photons and for a given decoherence rate inside the measurement device.We theoretically show that the recently reported quantum-noise limited sensitivity of the squeezed-light-enhanced gravitational-wave detector GEO600 is exceedingly close to this bound, given the present amount of optical loss. Furthermore, our result proves that the employed combination of a bright coherent state and a squeezed vacuum state is generally the optimum practical approach for phase estimation with high precision on absolute scales. Based on our analysis we conclude that neither the application of Fock states nor N00N states or any other sophisticated nonclassical quantum states would have yielded an appreciably higher quantum-noise limited sensitivity.
Quantum superposition is central to quantum theory but challenges our concepts of reality and spacetime when applied to macroscopic objects like Schrodingers cat. For that reason, it has been a long-standing question whether quantum physics remains valid unmodified even for truly macroscopic objects. By now, the predictions of quantum theory have been confirmed via matter-wave interferometry for massive objects up to $10^4,$ atomic mass units (amu). The rapid development of new technologies promises to soon allow tests of quantum theory for significantly higher test masses by using novel techniques of quantum optomechanics and high-mass matter-wave interferometry. Such experiments may yield novel insights into the foundations of quantum theory, pose stringent limits on alternative theoretical models or even uncover deviations from quantum physics. However, performing experiments of this type on Earth may soon face principal limitations due to requirements of long times of flight, ultra-low vibrations, and extremely high vacuum. Here, we present a short overview of recent developments towards the implementation of the proposed space-mission MAQRO, which promises to overcome those limitations and to perform matter-wave interferometry in a parameter regime orders of magnitude beyond state-of-the-art.