Sensitive Absolute Gravity Gradiometry Using Atom Interferometry
Abstract
We report the demonstration of a sensitive absolute gravity gradiometer based on light-pulse atom interference techniques. The gradiometer consists of two absolute accelerometers operated in a differential mode. We report a differential acceleration sensitivity of 4e-9 g/Hz^(1/2) and an inferred differential acceleration accuracy of less than 1e-9 g. This corresponds to a gravity gradient sensitivity of 4 E/Hz^(1/2) [1 E = 1e-9 s^(-2)] and an accuracy of better than 1 E for a 10 m separation between accelerometers. We demonstrate that the instrument can be used to detect nearby masses in a vibrationally noisy environment and characterize instrument sensitivity to spurious acceleration and rotation noise.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0105088,
title = {Sensitive Absolute Gravity Gradiometry Using Atom Interferometry},
author = {J. M. McGuirk and G. T. Foster and J. B. Fixler and M. J. Snadden and M. A. Kasevich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0105088},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
15 pages, 11 figures zipped into one file, submitted to Phys. Rev. A