Eur. Phys. J. D (2012) 66: 61
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-20401-6

Regular Article

Theoretical analysis of aliasing noises in cold atom Mach-Zehnder interferometers

Laboratoire Temps-Fréquence (LTF), Université de Neuchâtel, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland

^a e-mail: alain.joyet@unine.ch

Received: 6 July 2011
Received in final form: 5 January 2012
Published online: 6 March 2012

Abstract

We present a theoretical analysis of aliasing noises that might appear in cold atom Mach-Zehnder interferometers used for the measurement of various physical quantities. We focus more specifically on single cold atom gyroscopes. To evaluate the level of aliasing noises, we have developed a model based on the power spectral densities of the different identified noise sources as input parameters and which makes use of a servo-loop to realize a precise measurement of the rotation rate. The model allows one to take into account different modes of operation, like a continuous as well as a pulsed or even a multi-ball operation. For monokinetic atoms, we show that the intermodulation noise can be completely filtered out with a continuous mode of operation and an optimum modulation scheme for any modulation frequency but also with a pulsed operation however only for specific launching frequencies. In the case of a real continuous atomic beam having a velocity distribution, it comes out that a high attenuation can be reached which indicates clearly the potential stability improvement that can be expected from a continuous operation.