Topic
A technique that splits and recombines atomic matter waves to measure phase shifts, enabling precise tests of gravity, acceleration, and fundamental physics.
One path of a rubidium atom was held against gravity while the other fell freely, and the phase the two arms accumulated matches what Einstein's equivalence principle predicts for a quantum wave.
Reality
ETH Zurich and PSI report in Nature Physics that antimuons stopped in a film of superfluid helium near absolute zero come out as muonium atoms at similar speeds and almost parallel, the beam quality a free-fall measurement needs.
Reality
The equivalence principle has only ever been checked on first-generation matter. Anna Soter's group reports in Nature Physics a muonium source whose atoms leave the liquid at similar speeds, the condition a free-fall measurement needs.
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Sandia's headline number describes the light delivered to the atoms inside a vacuum chamber, and the question for anyone sizing a deployed unit is what the lasers, electronics and pumps around it draw.
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Jongmin Lee's group at Sandia cut the optical power needed to guide cesium atoms to between a quarter and a sixth of earlier approaches, using a fiber 420 nanometers across, in work aimed at navigation when GPS is jammed.
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