Atomic Physics Seminars

Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) are alternatives to GPS that operate using linear accelerometers and gyroscopes to calculate the user’s position, orientation, and velocity using no external reference. Optical Sagnac gyroscopes are part of modern day INS and are limited by their ability to measure small rotations as they need a very large enclosed area. The Bragg Interferometer Gyroscope in a Time Orbiting Potential Trap (BIGTOP) is a rotation detector using a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) to execute two Sagnac interferometers in a magnetic trap. BIGTOP is an improvement upon a previous iteration of a dual Sagnac interferometer which demonstrated rotation sensing. We have achieved atom interferometry with BIGTOP and reached a Sagnac area of 8 mm² using multiple orbits, an improvement by a factor of 16. Additionally, we have taken our first large dataset over the course of 24 hours, which can be used to analyze the stability of our system. In tandem with BIGTOP, we have also worked to characterize and operate a compact atom chip interferometer system built by Cold Quanta (CQsystem). We report BIGTOP results, progress with the CQ system, and future work.