Mobile quantum gravity sensor with unprecedented stability
Paper in proceeding, 2016

Changes of surface gravity on Earth are of great interest in geodesy, earth sciences and natural resource exploration. They are indicative of Earth system's mass redistributions and vertical surface motion, and are usually measured with falling corner-cube- and superconducting gravimeters (FCCG and SCG). Here we report on absolute gravity measurements with a mobile quantum gravimeter based on atom interferometry. The measurements were conducted in Germany and Sweden over periods of several days with simultaneous SCG and FCCG comparisons. They show the best-reported performance of mobile atomic gravimeters to date with an accuracy of 39 nm/s^2, long-term stability of 0,5 nm/s^2 and short-term noise of 96 nm/s^2/(Hz)^1/2. These measurements highlight the unique properties of atomic sensors. The achieved level of performance in a transportable instrument enables new applications in geodesy and related Fields, such as continuous absolute gravity monitoring with a single instrument under rough environmental conditions.

Frequency Standards

Metrology

Atom Interferometry

Gravimetry

Author

Christian Freier

Humboldt University of Berlin

Matthias Hauth

Humboldt University of Berlin

Vladimir Schkolnik

Humboldt University of Berlin

Bastian Keykauf

Humboldt University of Berlin

Manuel Schilling

University of Hanover

Hartmut Wziontek

Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG)

Hans-Georg Scherneck

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Onsala Space Observatory

Chalmers, Earth and Space Sciences, Space Geodesy and Geodynamics

Jürgen Müller

University of Hanover

Achim Peters

Humboldt University of Berlin

Journal of Physics: Conference Series

17426588 (ISSN) 17426596 (eISSN)

Vol. 723 1 Art. no. 012050- 012050

Subject Categories

Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Geophysics

Roots

Basic sciences

Infrastructure

Onsala Space Observatory

DOI

10.1088/1742-6596/723/1/012050

More information

Latest update

9/6/2018 1