An Atom Interferometer Enabled by Spontaneous Decay

We investigate the question as to whether Michelson-type interferometry is possible if the role of the beam splitter is played by a spontaneous process. This question arises from an inspection of trajectories of atoms bouncing inelastically from an evanescent-wave (EW) mirror. Each final velocity can be reached via two possible paths, with a spontaneous Raman transition occurring during either the ingoing or the outgoing part of the trajectory. At first sight, one might expect that the spontaneous character of the Raman transfer would destroy the coherence and thus the interference. We investigated this problem by numerically solving the Schrodinger equation and applying a Monte Carlo wave-function approach. We find interference fringes in velocity space, even when random photon recoils are taken into account.