Improved Bragg splitting of Bose-Einstein condensates into high-order momenta wave-packets

Important precision measurements including rotations can be realized using matter-wave interferometers. Our guided Sagnac interferometer cycle starts with coherent splitting of a stationary Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into non-zero momenta wave-packets. A way to improve the sensitivity of such an interferometer is to utilize wave-packets with higher momenta that enclose a bigger area at recombination. Recently, we reported preliminary results of splitting Bose-Einstein condensates into high-order target momentum states using optical standing-wave Bragg pulse sequences of various shapes. In this work, we report on the improvements that are made to the Bragg-splitting experiment design that enabled higher splitting fidelities. We also numerically explore the high-order momentum splitting dynamics with different pulse shapes using improved one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii (GPE) simulations which will be compared to the splitting experiments. We will further discuss the improvements to the experimental apparatus to realize better quality experimental data.