Experimental Validation of Interferometry Simulations on an Atom Chip

We report on recent experimental results on manipulating cold atoms trapped on a chip for the development of a compact atom interferometer using a double-well potential. The experiment uses $^{87}$Rb atoms magnetically confined in an atomic waveguide produced by wires on the surface of a lithographically patterned chip. The double-well potential is created by dynamically changing the current configuration on our atom chip.~ By dynamically powering traces on the atom chip while simultaneously varying external bias fields, we offer a means to coherently split the atomic cloud.~ We investigate real-time transformations, both adiabatic and non-adiabatic, between different double-well configurations and study their effects on the initially trapped atoms. We examine the coherence properties of the two atomic wavepackets and evaluate their potential use in an atom interferometer.