Effects related to the temperature of atoms in an atom interferometry gravimeter based on ultra-cold atoms

Abstract

The temperature of atoms, coupled to several effects, plays an important role in high precision atom interferometry gravimeters. In this work, we present an ultra-cold 87 Rb atom interferometry gravimeter, in which the atom source is produced by evaporative cooling in an all optical dipole trap to investigate the effects related to atom temperature. A condensate containing 4 × 10 4 atoms can be prepared within 3.2 s through an all-optical dipole trap composed of two reservoirs and a dimple. The fringe contrast of our atom interferometry gravimeter reaches up to 76(4)% due to the advantage of ultra-cold atom source even at a free evolution time of T =80 ms. A resolution of 6 μ Gal (1 μ Gal=1×10 −8 m/s 2 ) after 3000 s integration time with a sampling rate of 0.25 Hz is achieved in this atom gravimeter. The relationship between the fringe contrast and the atom temperature in the atom gravimeter is studied; in addition, the wavefront aberration effect in the atom gravimeter is also investigated by varying the temperature of atoms.