Speaker
Description
Atom interferometry measurements of
the recoil of an atom upon absorption/emission of a photon are used in some of the
highest-precision tests of the Standard Model via the fine-structure constant.
Current experiments use multi-photon transitions with Rb and Cs, but there is a
tension between the best values from each species. In this talk, I will present a
scheme for performing recoil measurements with single-photon transitions. I will
discuss some of the systematics important for reliably determining the
fine-structure constant, including laser wavefront quality and light shifts, and how
they might be addressed in upcoming experiments. These techniques would be
well-suited to upcoming large-scale atom interferometry experiments with Sr or Yb,
such as AION, MAGIS, and VLBAI.
