Raithel, Georg: Novel Approaches to Matter Wave Interferometry

In this talk we will review the fundamentals and possible applications of Tractor Atom Interferometry (TAI). TAI employs uninterrupted three-dimensional confinement of interfering atomic wave packets in user-controlled tractor potentials throughout the atom-interferometric sequence. TAI provides guaranteed closure, suppresses wave-packet dispersion, is robust against coherence loss from environmental platform dynamics, and allows for arbitrary user-controlled atom-interferometric paths for maximal sensitivity to certain observables, while suppressing contributions from forces that may not be of interest. Both in scalar and spinor implementations, TAI benefits from rapid adiabatic spitting and recombination, which can be enhanced significantly using advanced quantum-control protocols. We will discuss approaches to suppress noise arising from the tractor potentials. Applications of TAI in fundamental physics, such as searches for dark matter and post-Newtonian effects, as well as in applied fields, such as inertial sensing and gravity mapping, will be discussed.