• Accepted Paper

Atom-interferometer phase shear and spacetime sectional curvature

Hunter Swan and Jason M. Hogan

Phys. Rev. A - Accepted 6 October, 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 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.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation

If the author has provided any supplemental materials with this article they will be available upon publication of the version of record.

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation