THERMAL CALCIUM ATOM INTERFEROMETER COMPRISED OF 3 COPROPAGATING TRAVELING LASER-BEAMS

An atom interferometer was constructed using the interactions of a the rmal Ca atomic beam with three copropagating traveling laser beams sep arated in space. A visibility of 0.25 could be obtained when the therm al atomic beam was excited by laser powers of pi/2, pi, and pi/2 pulse s of the three laser beams, for atoms with the most probable velocity. The equation for the population probability of the excited atom was d erived for the divergent thermal atomic beam which interacts with thre e laser beams of arbitrary powers. The experimental behavior was fairl y well explained by the calculated results. The visibility is reduced owing to the resonance linewidth being narrower than the linewidth of the beam divergence, in addition to the Maxwell velocity distribution.