Theory of matter wave beam splitters in gravito-inertial and trapping potentials

Abstract

We present a strong field theory of matter wave splitting in the presence of various gravitational, inertial and trapping potentials. The effect of these potentials on the resonance condition (between the splitting potential and the considered effective two-level system) and on the atomic Borrmann effect is investigated in detail. The dispersive structuring of an incident atomic wave packet - due to such generalized beam splitters - is studied and modeled, and several important dynamical features of the solutions are detailed (generalized Rabi oscillations, velocity selection, anomalous dispersion, generalized Borrmann effect and anomalous gravitational bending). Finally, we show how to express this triple interaction "matter - splitting potential - gravito-inertial and trapping potentials" as an equivalent instantaneous interaction which turns out to be a very efficient tool for the modeling of atom interferometers.