Observable frequency shifts via spin-rotation coupling

The phase perturbation arising from spin-rotation coupling is developed as a natural extension of the celebrated Sagnac effect. Experimental evidence in support of this phase shift, however, has yet to be realized due to the exceptional sensitivity required. We draw attention to the relevance of a series of experiments establishing that circularly polarized light, upon passing through a rotating half-wave plate, is changed in frequency by twice the rotation rate. These experiments may be interpreted as demonstrating the role of spin-rotation coupling in inducing this frequency shift, thus providing direct empirical verification of the coupling of the photon helicity to rotation. A neutron interferometry experiment is proposed which would be sensitive to an analogous frequency shift for fermions. In this arrangement, polarized neutrons enter an interferometer containing two spin flippers, one of which is rotating while the other is held stationary. An observable beating in the transmitted neutron beam intensity is predicted.     

A Direct Kinematical Derivation of the Relativistic Sagnac Effect for Light or Matter Beams

The Sagnac time delay and the corresponding Sagnac phase shift, for relativistic matter and electromagnetic beams counter-propagating in a rotating interferometer, are deduced on the ground of relativistic kinematics. This purely kinematical approach allows to explain the universality of the effect, namely the fact that the Sagnac time difference does not depend on the physical nature of the interfering beams. The only prime requirement is that the counter-propagating beams have the same velocity with respect to any Einstein synchronized local co-moving inertial frame.     

Sagnac Effect of Gödel's Universe

We present exact expressions for the Sagnac effect of Gödel's Universe. For this purpose we first derive a formula for the Sagnac time delay along a circular path in the presence of an arbitrary stationary metric in cylindrical coordinates. We then apply this result to Gödel's metric for two different experimental situations: First, the light source and the detector are at rest relative to the matter generating the gravitational field. In this case we find an expression that is formally equivalent to the familiar nonrelativistic Sagnac time delay. Second, the light source and the detector are rotating relative to the matter. Here we show that for a special rotation rate of the detector the Sagnac time delay vanishes. Finally we propose a formulation of the Sagnac time delay in terms of invariant physical quantities. We show that this result is very close to the analogous formula of the Sagnac time delay of a rotating coordinate system in Minkowski spacetime.     

The Sagnac Phase Shift Suggested by the Aharonov-Bohm Effect for Relativistic Matter Beams

The phase shift due to the Sagnac Effect, for relativistic matter beams counter-propagating in a rotating interferometer, is deduced on the bases of a formal analogy with the Aharonov-Bohm effect. A procedure outlined by Sakurai, in which non relativistic quantum mechanics and Newtonian physics appear together with some intrinsically relativistic elements, is generalized to a fully relativistic context, using the Cattaneo's splitting technique. This approach leads to an exact derivation, in a self-consistently relativistic way, of the Sagnac effect. Sakurai's result is recovered in the first order approximation.     

The Maraner effect as a particular case of the quadratic Sagnac effect

Optics and Spectroscopy - The quadratic Sagnac effect consists in a Michelson interferometer (MI) being located on a rotating base with a phase difference in its arms arising, the value of which...     

Derivation of the General Case Sagnac Result Using Non-Time-Orthogonal Analysis

The Sagnac time delay and fringe shift dependency on angular velocity and enclosed area are derived from the rotating reference frame using non-time-orthogonal (NTO) tensor analysis. NTO analysis differs from traditional approaches by postulating that the continuous and single valued nature of physical time constrains simultaneity in a rotating frame to be unique (and thus not a matter of convention.) This implies anisotropy in the physical, local speed of light and invalidity of the hypothesis of locality for NTO frames. The Sagnac relationship for the most general case, in which the area enclosed is not circular and does not have the axis of rotation passing through its center, is determined.     

Sagnac interferometer with adaptive nonlinear detection

We present a Sagnac interferometer that uses a nonlinear adaptive medium for detection. The nonlinearity of the medium being characterized by a finite response time, the detection has a finite frequency bandwidth determining two operational regimes: at low variation rate of the rotation speed the interferometer operates in the slow-light regime, providing a direct measurement of the angular acceleration. For high variation rate of the rotation speed the amplitude of the alternating component of the Sagnac phase shift is instead detected, with the continuous and low-frequency components filtered out by the adaptive nonlinear process in the medium.     

转镜式高灵敏度干涉光谱成像仪ROSI的设计方法

介绍了转镜式高灵敏度干涉光谱成像仪(ROSI)的设计计算方法,包括系统基本参量计算、光程差与干涉仪结构参量和转镜角度的关系以及转镜转速与探测器采样帧频的关系等,同时,分析了像点位移与探测器采样之间的失配问题,并给出了最小采样频率公式.     

Polarization insensitive linear intensity modulation in a Sagnac fiber-optic loop with an electro-optic cell and optoelectronic feedback

We present a modulation scheme consisting of a fiber-optic Sagnac interferometer, which has an electro-optic modulator (Pockels cell) in the loop of the interferometer. In order to diminish the nonlinearity of the Sagnac interferometer transmittance function, we monitor a very small part of the output light intensity by means of a photodiode and then amplify this signal by a constant factor ξ. This amplified signal is added to the electrical modulating signal that is being applied to the electro-optical modulator. The consequence of introducing this feedback loop is that by properly choosing the amplifying factor ξ, we can increase the linearity of the modulation. The device is insensitive to the polarization state of the input light, so it should be used for intensity modulation of nonpolarized light with up to 100% modulation depth. The theoretical and experimental examination of the device is presented.     

Surface-profile measurement by means of a polarization Sagnac interferometer with parallel optical feedback

We describe a novel feedback interferometer for real-time, unambiguous measurement of surface profiles that consists of a polarization Sagnac interferometer and an optically addressed phase-only spatial light modulator. In this system the output intensity from the Sagnac interferometer is optically fed back to the phase modulator placed in one arm of the interferometer, which produces a sawtooth fringe intensity profile (instead of the conventional cosinusoidal one) that is directly and unambiguously related to the surface profile. Preliminary experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of applying this system to surface-profile measurement.     

Sagnac effect in ring interferometers on “slow” waves

We consider the Sagnac effect in ring interferometers on magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves. It is shown that the Sagnac effect for waves of arbitrary type (including both magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves) propagating in an arbitrary medium cannot be calculated using Galilean transformations but is explained within the framework of the special relativity and is related to the difference between the phase velocities rather than group velocities of counter-propagating waves in the rotating reference frame. We also show that the phase difference of counterpropagating waves due to the Sagnac effect depends on neither the phase velocity of the wave in a medium at rest nor the dispersion of the medium; it depends only on the wave frequency and the angular velocity of interferometer rotation. The minimum angular velocity that can be measured in the ring interferometers using magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves is estimated. N. I. Labachevsky State University, Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 373–382, April 1999.     

Wavefront measurement with a phase-shifting lateral-shearing Sagnac interferometer operating in broadband light

A phase-stepping lateral shearing Sagnac interferometer for wavefront measurement is described. Phase shifting is implemented using a polarisation modulator operating on the wavelength independent Pancharatnam's phase allowing accurate measurement of phase maps even with broadband light. We demonstrate the interferometer by measuring a range of different wavefront shapes using both laser and white light.     

Temperature-insensitive strain measurement using a birefringent interferometer based on a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber

We propose a novel and simple scheme for a temperature-insensitive strain measurement by using a birefringent interferometer configured by a polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF). The wavelength-dependent periodic transmission in a birefringent interferometer can be achieved by using a PM-PCF between two linear polarizers. Since the PM-PCF is composed of a single material, such as silica, the peak wavelength shift with temperature variation can be negligible because of the small amount of the birefringence change of the PM-PCF with temperature change. The measured temperature sensitivity is −0.3 pm/°C. However, the peak wavelength can be changed by strain because the peak wavelength shift is directly proportion to strain change. The strain sensitivity is measured to be 1.3 pm/με in a strain range from 0 to 1600 με. The measurement resolution of the strain is estimated to be 2.1 με. The proposed scheme has advantages of simple structure and low loss without a Sagnac loop, temperature insensitivity, ease installation, and short length of a sensing probe compared with a conventional PMF-based Sagnac loop interferometer.     

Interferometry with Ca atoms

Separated field excitation of a calcium atomic beam using four traveling laser fields represents two distinct atom interferometers utilizing the internal degrees of freedom of the atoms. Phase shifts between the atomic partial waves have been realized by phase shifts of the laser wave fields, by the ac-Stark shift, and by rotation of the interferometer (Sagnac effect). One particular interferometer can be selected by interaction of the atomic waves with extra laser fields. We furthermore report on the preparation of a laser cooled and deflected calcium atomic beam that can be utilized to largely increase the sensitivity of the interferometer.     

Magneto-optic fiber Sagnac modulator based on magnetic fluids

A magneto-optic modulator with a magnetic fluid film inserted into an optical fiber Sagnac interferometer is proposed. The magnetic fluid exhibits variable birefringence and Faraday effect under external magnetic field that will lead to a phase difference and polarization state rotation in the Sagnac interferometer. As a result, the intensity of the output light is modulated under the external magnetic field. Moreover, the modulator has a high extinction ratio and can easily be integrated in a single-mode fiber system. The performance of the modulator is not affected by ambient temperature variation from room temperature to 40 °C.     

Modeling and simulation of polarization errors in Sagnac fiber optic current sensor

Sagnac fiber optic current sensor (S-FOCS) is a kind of optical interferometer based on Sagnac structure, optical polarization states of sensing light wave in Sagnac fiber optic current sensor are limited. However, several factors induce optical polarization error, and non-ideal polarized light waves cause the interference signal crosstalk in sensor, including polarizer, quarter-wave retarder, splice angular, birefringence and so on. With these errors, linearly polarized light wave in PM fiber and circularly polarized light wave in sensing fiber become elliptically polarized light wave, then, nonreciprocal phase shift induced by magnetic field of the current is interrupted by wrong polarization state. To clarify characteristics of optical polarization error in fiber optic current sensor, we analyze the evolution process of random optical polarization state, linear optical polarization state and circular optical polarization state in Sagnac fiber optic current sensor by using Poincare sphere, then, build optical polarization error models by using Jones matrix. Based on models of polarization state in Sagnac fiber optic current sensor, we investigate the influence of several main error factors on optical polarization error characteristics theoretically, including extinction ratio in polarizer, phase delay in quarter-wave retarder, splice angular between quarter-wave retarder and polarization maintaining fiber. Finally, we simulate and quantify nonreciprocal phase shift to be detected in fiber optic current sensor related with optical polarization errors. In the end, we demonstrate S-FOCS in test. The results show that transfer matrix errors are induced by inaccurate polarization properties during polarization state conversion, then, the stability and accuracy of the S-FOCS are affected, and it is important to control the polarization properties at each step of the polarization state conversion precisely.     

A ruggedized miniature UHV electron biprism interferometer for new fundamental experiments and applications

Electron interferometers are very sensitive to mechanical vibration and alternating magnetic fields. This is the reason why in the past their application was restricted to laboratories with very low disturbances of this kind. We present a novel type of electron biprism interferometer totally different in its technical realisation compared to conventional instruments. Its extremely low sensitivity to both types of disturbances is demonstrated and for the first time allows to make use of electron interferometry in virtually every environment. Experiments inconceivable with conventional electron interferometers are rendered possible with the new instrument. As an example, we hope to be able to demonstrate with it the rotational phase shift of charged matter waves (Sagnac effect with electrons) in the near future.     

Arrayed waveguide Sagnac interferometer

We present a novel device, an arrayed waveguide Sagnac interferometer, that combines the flexibility of arrayed waveguides and the wide application range of fiber or integrated optics Sagnac loops. We form the device by closing an array of wavelength-selective light paths provided by two arrayed waveguides with a single 2 x 2 coupler in a Sagnac configuration. The equations that describe the device's operation in general conditions are derived. A preliminary experimental demonstration is provided of a fiber prototype in passive operation that shows good agreement with the expected theoretical performance. Potential applications of the device in nonlinear operation are outlined and discussed.     

Balanced heterodyne signal extraction in a postmodulated Sagnac interferometer at low frequency

We describe a balanced-heterodyne postmodulated Sagnac interferometer signal extraction method that is suitable for gravitational wave detection. The method is simple to implement by placement of a polarization-selective modulator after the beam splitter in the dark port of the interferometer. The postmodulated Sagnac interferometer retains its common path advantage and exhibits insensitivity to laser frequency noise below, at, and above the heterodyne frequency. Balanced detection reduces sensitivity to laser amplitude noise. In this scheme mirror displacement signals were rf demodulated and observed from 0.2 to 10kHz.     

High resolution polar Kerr effect measurements of Sr2RuO4: evidence for broken time-reversal symmetry in the superconducting state

The polar Kerr effect in the spin-triplet superconductor Sr2RuO4 was measured with high precision using a Sagnac interferometer with a zero-area Sagnac loop. We observed nonzero Kerr rotations as big as 65 nanorad appearing below Tc in large domains. Our results imply a broken time-reversal symmetry state in the superconducting state of Sr2RuO4, similar to 3He-A.