Sensitive detection of local magnetic field changes with atomic interferometry by using superconducting Meissner effects

Abstract

Sensitive detection of magnetic field is one of the open problem in metrology. Here, we propose an Mach-Zehnder atomic interferometry to sensitively detect the very weak local magnetic field, which is expelled by the superconductor (as the "testing magnet") due to the Meissner effect. The induced magnetic field gradient near the superconductor provides a centripetal acceleration of the atomic motion in the interferometry and thus can be detected by using the atomic interferences. Given gravity acceleration of the atoms have been measured at the accuracy of $10^{-12}$ g, the measured sensitivity of the expelled local field could reach $10^{-14}$ T.