Reaching the quantum noise limit in a high-sensitivity cold-atom inertial sensor

Abstract

In our high-precision atom interferometer, the measured atomic phase shift is sensitive to rotations and accelerations of the apparatus, and also to phase fluctuations of the Raman lasers. In this paper we study two principal noise sources affecting the atomic phase shift, induced by optical phase noise and vibrations of the setup. Phase noise is reduced by carrying out a phase lock of the Raman lasers after the amplification stages. We also present a new scheme to reduce noise due to accelerations by using a feed-forward on the phase of the Raman beams. With these methods, it should be possible to reach the range of the atomic quantum projection noise limit, which is about 1 mrad rms for our experiment, i.e. 30 nrad s-1 Hz-1/2 for a rotation measurement.