Random Acceleration Noise on Stern-Gerlach Interferometry in a Harmonic Trap
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.21288 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 24 Feb 2026] Title:Random Acceleration Noise on Stern-Gerlach Interferometry in a Harmonic Trap Authors:Sneha Narasimha Moorthy, Andrew Geraci, Sougato Bose, Anupam Mazumdar View a PDF of the paper titled Random Acceleration Noise on Stern-Gerlach Interferometry in a Harmonic Trap, by Sneha Narasimha Moorthy and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:We analyze decoherence in a one-loop Stern--Gerlach--type matter-wave interferometer for a massive nanoparticle embedded with a nitrogen vacancy (NV)-centred nanodiamond evolving under an effective harmonic-oscillator dynamics in a magnetic-field gradient. We assume that the Stern-Gerlach interferometer is subjected to a random acceleration noise external to the system. This could be along the direction of the superposition at an angle which can be varied. We quantify dephasing from two noise channels: fluctuations in the external acceleration $a(t)$ magnitude and direction as specified by the tilt angle $\theta_0(t)$ between the superposition axis and the acceleration. At the level of the action, we treat these two external noise as stochastic inputs, and compute the resulting stochastic arm-phase difference, and obtain the dephasing rate $\Gamma$ using the Wiener--Khinchin theorem. For a white noise and a coherence target $\Gamma \tau\leq 1$ and by assuming that we finish the one-loop interferometer within $\tau=2\pi/\omega_0\simeq 0.015~\mathrm{s}$, for a reasonable choice of the magnetic field gradient, $\eta_0=6\times 10^{3}~\mathrm{T\,m^{-1}}$ and mass of the nanodiamond, $m=10^{-15}~\mathrm{kg}$) to create a superposition size of $\Delta x\sim 1$nm. We find $\sqrt{\mathcal{S}_{aa}}\lesssim \mathcal{O}(10^{-11})~\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}\,Hz^{-1/2}}$ even if we take the external acceleration, $a=0~{\rm ms^{-2}}$ and $\theta_0=0^\circ$ (along the dirction of the superposition), and $\sqrt{\mathcal{S}_{\theta\theta}}\lesssim \mathcal{O}(10^{-10})~\mathrm{rad\,Hz^{-1/2}}$ for $a=g= 9.81~\mathrm{m\,s^{-2}}$ and $\theta_0=0^\circ$ (superposition direction is perpendicular to the Earth's gravity). We have also found an operating regime where the acceleration noise can be minimized by either varying $\theta_0$ or $a$ for a fixed set of other experimental parameters. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.21288 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.21288v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.21288 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Sneha Narasimha Moorthy [view email] [v1] Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:00:02 UTC (3,128 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Random Acceleration Noise on Stern-Gerlach Interferometry in a Harmonic Trap, by Sneha Narasimha Moorthy and 3 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)