Beyond the semiclassical approximation in atom interferometry

Abstract

We describe a quantum perturbative approach to evaluating the phase shift of an atom interferometer in a weakly anharmonic trap. This provides a simple way to evaluate quantum corrections to the standard semiclassical approximation. The calculation benefits from the use of generalized coherent states for a basis. We find that the form of the semiclassical approximation remains valid to first order in the anharmonic perturbation, but that phase differences arise because the trajectory of a quantum wave packet will generally deviate from that of a classical particle. The quantum correction to the phase is a factor ℓ2/A2 smaller than the semiclassical perturbation itself, where ℓ is the quantum harmonic-oscillator lengthscale, and A is the classical amplitude of the motion. We provide analytical results for one-dimensional perturbations of power 3 through 6 in the position coordinate.