Atom-interferometer phase shear and spacetime sectional curvature
Phys. Rev. A 114, 053310 – Published 6 November, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pnn4-rlgl
Abstract
Atom interferometry is a natural laboratory for precision tests of general relativity, but there are no known simple relationships between the atom interferometer phase and geometric properties of spacetime. Here we show that a different atom interferometer observable, the phase shear, can be expressed directly as the integrated sectional curvature over a spacetime surface enclosed by the interferometer arms and final beamsplitter, which follows from a generalized Gauss-Bonnet theorem. This interface of quantum mechanics, relativity, and geometry is manifestly coordinate-free and representation-free and can provide a useful computational tool for predicting atom interferometer properties in arbitrary background spacetimes.
