Coherence Times of Bose-Einstein Condensates beyond the Shot-Noise Limit via Superfluid Shielding

We demonstrate a new way to extend the coherence time of separated Bose-Einstein condensates that involves immersion into a superfluid bath. When both the system and the bath have similar scattering lengths, immersion in a superfluid bath cancels out inhomogeneous potentials either imposed by external fields or inherent in density fluctuations due to atomic shot noise. This effect, which we call superfluid shielding, allows for coherence lifetimes beyond the projection noise limit. We probe the coherence between separated condensates in different sites of an optical lattice by monitoring the contrast and decay of Bloch oscillations. Our technique demonstrates a new way that interactions can improve the performance of quantum devices.