Eur. Phys. J. D 20, 165-176 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2002-00126-y

Gravitational decoherence of atomic interferometers

¹ Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (Unité mixte du CNRS, de l'École Normale Supérieure et de l'Université Pierre et Marie Curie.) , Université Pierre et Marie Curie, case 74, campus Jussieu, place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
² Laboratoire de Physique Théorique (Unité propre du CNRS, associée à l'École Normale Supérieure et à l'Université Paris XI Orsay.) , École Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

Corresponding author: ^a reynaud@spectro.jussieu.fr

Received: 15 February 2002
Revised: 12 April 2002
Published online: 19 July 2002

Abstract

We study the decoherence of atomic interferometers due to the scattering of stochastic gravitational waves. We evaluate the “direct” gravitational effect registered by the phase of the matter waves as well as the “indirect” effect registered by the light waves used as beam-splitters and mirrors for the matter waves. Considering as an example the space project HYPER, we show that both effects are negligible for the presently studied interferometers.