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Weak Measurements of Atomic Momentum

There is considerable interest in the use of weak measurements to explore fundamental quantum processes and for quantum metrology. In this talk I will describe our experiments which aim to make a weak measurement of atomic momentum using a cold-atom, matter-wave interferometer. I will describe our matter-wave interferometer that uses laser cooled argon atoms to perform these measurements. In this scheme, cold atoms are first produced in a magneto-optical trap before radiation pressure is utilised to form a slow atomic beam that is directed through an optical grating. I will describe how we will use this system to reconstruct the atomic trajectories within the interferometer where the pointer that weakly couples to momentum is the spin of the 5 Zeeman states of the laser-cooled metastable (4S[3/2]2) argon atoms.