Coherence in the presence of absorption and heating in a molecule interferometer

J. P. Cotter, S. Eibenberger, L. Mairhofer, X. Cheng, P. Asenbaum, M. Arndt (), K. Walter, S. Nimmrichter and K. Hornberger
Additional contact information
J. P. Cotter: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
S. Eibenberger: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
L. Mairhofer: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
X. Cheng: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
P. Asenbaum: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
M. Arndt: University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, VCQ & QuNaBioS
K. Walter: University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Physics
S. Nimmrichter: University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Physics
K. Hornberger: University of Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Physics

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Matter-wave interferometry can be used to probe the foundations of physics and to enable precise measurements of particle properties and fundamental constants. It relies on beam splitters that coherently divide the wave function. In atom interferometers, such elements are often realised using lasers by exploiting the dipole interaction or through photon absorption. It is intriguing to extend these ideas to complex molecules where the energy of an absorbed photon can rapidly be redistributed across many internal degrees of freedom. Here, we provide evidence that center-of-mass coherence can be maintained even when the internal energy and entropy of the interfering particle are substantially increased by absorption of photons from a standing light wave. Each photon correlates the molecular center-of-mass wave function with its internal temperature and splits it into a superposition with opposite momenta in addition to the beam-splitting action of the optical dipole potential.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8336 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8336

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8336

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().