Fig. 3: Visibility.
Visibility as a function of temperature, averaged in bins of 2 K for clarity. Scattering or absorption of photons would lead to a dephasing of the atomic ensemble, resulting in a reduction of visibility. No obvious loss of visibility is a strong indication that the contribution of scattering and absorption events is negligible. The inset shows interference fringes taken at T s = 437 K and T s = 326 K. Each fringe consists of 80 experimental runs with a cycle time of 1.2 s. The fitted fringe phase gives an acceleration measurement, contributing a data point to the bulk data seen in Fig. 2b,c.
