近日，英国伦敦帝国理工学院O. Buchmüller团队报道了基础物理差分原子干涉仪的原型。相关论文于2026年6月17日发表在《自然》杂志上。

引力波与超轻暗物质是基础物理学中最具吸引力的前沿方向之一，由此催生了超长基线原子干涉仪的提案，例如AION、MAGIS、AICE和AEDGE，旨在探测地面和空间激光干涉仪灵敏度下降频段内的信号。超长基线原子干涉仪通过比较由同一激光询问的远距离分离原子系综的量子相位演进来寻找信号。然而，其性能在很大程度上取决于噪声源的抑制，尤其是激光相位噪声。此类噪声抑制能力的实验验证仍是一项重要挑战。

研究组展示了一种基于费米子性87Sr单光子钟跃迁的原型差分原子干涉仪。最终获得了一种梯度计构型，其所用原子种类天然适用于公里级和空间基线运行。该仪器工作在标准量子极限，除原子散粒噪声外无额外噪声。在每脉冲数弧度的人工注入激光相位噪声条件下（模拟超长基线原子干涉仪的预期工况），该差分构型仍保持量子极限灵敏度。研究组还在完全相位随机化的条件下，演示了在宽频率范围内恢复相干振荡信号的能力，这是同一条件下单个干涉仪无法实现的。这些结果验证了超长基线原子干涉仪噪声免疫测量原理，并为下一代用于引力波探测和超轻暗物质搜寻的量子传感器迈出了重要一步。

附：英文原文

Title: A prototype differential atom interferometer for fundamental physics

Author: Baynham, C. F. A., Hobson, R., Buchmller, O., Evans, D., Hawkins, L., Iannizzotto Venezze, L., Josset, A., Lee, D., Pasatembou, E., Sauer, B. E., Tarbutt, M. R., Walker, T., Ennis, O., Chauhan, U., Brzakalik, A., Dey, S., Hedges, S., Stray, B., Langlois, M., Bongs, K., Hird, T., Lellouch, S., Holynski, M., Bostwick, B., Chen, J., Eyler, Z., Gibson, V., Harte, T. L., Hsu, C. C., Karzazi, M., Lu, C., Millward, B., Mitchell, J., Mouelle, N., Panchumarthi, B., Scheper, J., Schneider, U., Su, X., Tang, Y., Tkalec, K., Zeuner, M., Zhang, S., Zhi, Y., Badurina, L., Beniwal, A., Blas, D., Carlton, J., Ellis, J., McCabe, C., Parish, G., Govardhan, D. Pathak, Vaskonen, V., Bowcock, T., Bridges, K., Carroll, A., Coleman, J., Elertas, G., Hindley, S., Metelko, C., Throssell, H., Tinsley, J. N., Bentine, E., Booth, M., Bortoletto, D., Callaghan, N., Foot, C., Gmez-Monedero, C., Hughes, K.

Issue&Volume: 2026-06-17

Abstract: Gravitational waves and ultralight dark matter are among the most compelling frontiers in fundamental physics, motivating proposals for very-long-baseline atom interferometerssuch as AION1, MAGIS2, AICE3 and AEDGE4 that aim to detect at frequencies at which ground-based5 and space-borne6 laser interferometers lose sensitivity. Very-long-baseline atom interferometers look for signals by comparing the quantum phase evolution of widely separated atomic ensembles interrogated by a common laser. However, their performance depends critically on suppressing noise sources, particularly laser phase noise. The experimental validation of such noise rejection remains an important challenge. Here we demonstrate a prototype differential atom interferometer based on the single-photon clock transition of fermionic 87Sr. Thus, we obtain a gradiometer configuration with a species intrinsically suited to kilometre-scale and space-baseline operation. The instrument operates at the standard quantum limit7 with no excess noise beyond atom shot noise. The differential configuration maintains quantum-limited sensitivity in the presence of several radians of artificially injected laser phase noise per shot, which emulates the conditions expected in a very-long-baseline atom interferometer. We also demonstrate the recovery of coherent oscillatory signals across a broad frequency range under fully phase-randomized conditions, a capability that is inaccessible to a single interferometer operating in the same regime. These results provide an experimental validation of the noise-immune measurement principle underlying very-long-baseline atom interferometers and mark an important step towards next-generation quantum sensors for gravitational-wave detection and searches for ultralight dark matter8,9.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10617-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10617-1

期刊信息

Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504

官方网址：http://www.nature.com/

投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html