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Cavity-enhanced non-demolition measurements for atom counting and spin squeezing

Zilong Chen, JILA and Department of Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder

(Session 10 : Saturday from 2:30 - 3:00)

Abstract. Cavity-enhanced probing of an atomic ensemble is an important tool for precision metrology. In particular, high resolution, non-destructive atom counting increases measurement or sensing bandwidth, and mitigates noise aliasing (Dick effect) in an atomic sensor. Achieving high resolution atom counting while preserving coherence can generate conditionally spin squeezed states that has phase sensitivity below the standard quantum limit. In recent years, there has been much interest in cavity-enhanced measurements for the above metrological applications. We consider fundamental measurement imprecision and scalings for cavity-enhanced measurements. As a particular example, we will discuss fundamental squeezing limits in Rb-87 for the clock and stretched hyperfine transitions, taking into account the multilevel structure. We will also discuss our experimental squeezing on the Rb-87 clock transition and give an outlook on current efforts to squeeze using the Rb-87 cycling transition. References: [1] Zilong Chen, Justin G. Bohnet, Joshua M. Weiner, Kevin C. Cox, and James K. Thompson, arXiv:1211.0723 [2] Zilong Chen, Justin G. Bohnet, Shannon R. Sankar, Jiayan Dai, and James K. Thompson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 133601 (2011)