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Main Authors: Pagot, Louis, Merlet, Sébastien, Sidorenkov, Leonid A, Santos, Franck Pereira dos
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07013
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author Pagot, Louis
Merlet, Sébastien
Sidorenkov, Leonid A
Santos, Franck Pereira dos
author_facet Pagot, Louis
Merlet, Sébastien
Sidorenkov, Leonid A
Santos, Franck Pereira dos
contents One of the main residual limitations of inertial sensors based on atom interferometry stems from laser beam distortions, which cause parasitic phase shifts and non-homogeneous matter-light couplings. Here we present numerical simulations, accompanied by analytical calculations, which quantify the impact of these effects in a cold atom gradiometer. We demonstrate that the propagation of interferometric laser beam aberrations, combined with initial asymmetry and significant time-of-flight expansion of the the two atomic sources, limit the common-mode rejection of phase noise in a differential configuration. The resulting deviations in gravitational acceleration and its gradient are within reach of current experimental devices. Our study allows us to evaluate the surface quality requirements for retroreflective optics in cold-atom gradiometers of various baselines, and can be extended to other sensors based on different interferometer geometries.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_07013
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rejection of wavefront aberrations in an atomic gradiometer
Pagot, Louis
Merlet, Sébastien
Sidorenkov, Leonid A
Santos, Franck Pereira dos
Atomic Physics
Quantum Physics
One of the main residual limitations of inertial sensors based on atom interferometry stems from laser beam distortions, which cause parasitic phase shifts and non-homogeneous matter-light couplings. Here we present numerical simulations, accompanied by analytical calculations, which quantify the impact of these effects in a cold atom gradiometer. We demonstrate that the propagation of interferometric laser beam aberrations, combined with initial asymmetry and significant time-of-flight expansion of the the two atomic sources, limit the common-mode rejection of phase noise in a differential configuration. The resulting deviations in gravitational acceleration and its gradient are within reach of current experimental devices. Our study allows us to evaluate the surface quality requirements for retroreflective optics in cold-atom gradiometers of various baselines, and can be extended to other sensors based on different interferometer geometries.
title Rejection of wavefront aberrations in an atomic gradiometer
topic Atomic Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07013