Concept study and preliminary design of a cold atom interferometer for space gravity gradiometry
Atomic Physics
2025-11-04 v1 Geophysics
Space Physics
Abstract
We study a space-based gravity gradiometer based on cold atom interferometry and its potential for the Earth's gravitational field mapping. The instrument architecture has been proposed in [Carraz et al., Microgravity Science and Technology 26, 139 (2014)] and enables high-sensitivity measurements of gravity gradients by using atom interferometers in a differential accelerometer configuration. We present the design of the instrument including its subsystems and analyze the mission scenario, for which we derive the expected instrument performances, the requirements on the sensor and its key subsystems, and the expected impact on the recovery of the Earth gravity field.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.09828,
title = {Concept study and preliminary design of a cold atom interferometer for space gravity gradiometry},
author = {A. Trimeche and B. Battelier and D. Becker and A. Bertoldi and P. Bouyer and C. Braxmaier and E. Charron and R. Corgier and M. Cornelius and K. Douch and N. Gaaloul and S. Herrmann and J. Müller and E. Rasel and C. Schubert and H. Wu and F. Pereira dos Santos},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.09828},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
31 pages, 19 figures