Precision Measurement with Atom Interferometry

ABSTRACT

Precise measurements of atomic, molecular, and optical systems are opening a new experimental window into fundamental physics. The high sensitivity of light-pulse atom interferometry, which uses lasers to separate and interfere atomic wave packets, makes it particularly well-suited for such measurements. In this talk, I will introduce some of the key concepts of precision measurement and will discuss several applications of atom interferometry to fundamental physics, including equivalence principle tests and searches for ultralight dark matter.

BIOGRAPHY

Chris Overstreet is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. He was previously a Q-FARM Bloch postdoctoral fellow in the group of Mark Kasevich at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford in 2020, where he studied gravity with atom interferometry, and his A.B. in Physics and Mathematics from Harvard in 2013, where he worked on the ACME experiment in the Gabrielse group. His research was recognized by the Paul Ehrenfest Best Paper Award for Quantum Foundations in 2020.