title: Reading the phase of a Raman excitation with a multi-state atomic interferometer.
abstract: Atomic memories for flying photonic qubits are an essential ingredient for many applications like e.g. quantum repeaters. Verification of the coherent transfer of information from a light field to an atomic superposition is usually obtained using an optical read-out. In this paper we report the direct detection of the atomic coherence by means of atom interferometry. We experimentally verified both that a bichromatic laser field closing a Raman transition imprints a distinct, controllable phase on the atomic coherence and that it can be recovered after a variable time delay.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lombardi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Herrera
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cherukattil
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petrovic
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lovecchio
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marin
authors.forename: F S
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Cataliotti