Heterodyne non-demolition measurements on cold atomic samples: towards the preparation of non-classical states for atom interferometry

We report on a novel experiment to generate non-classical atomic states via quantum non-demolition (QND) measurements on cold atomic samples prepared in a high-finesse ring cavity. The heterodyne technique developed for QND detection exhibits an optical shot-noise limited behavior for local oscillator optical power of a few hundred μW, and a detection bandwidth of several GHz. This detection tool is used in a single pass to follow non-destructively the internal state evolution of an atomic sample when subjected to Rabi oscillations or a spin-echo interferometric sequence.