Measurement of the Gravity-Field Curvature by Atom Interferometry
arXiv:1501.01500 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.013001
Abstract
We present the first direct measurement of the gravity-field curvature based on three conjugated atom interferometers. Three atomic clouds launched in the vertical direction are simultaneously interrogated by the same atom interferometry sequence and used to probe the gravity field at three equally spaced positions. The vertical component of the gravity-field curvature generated by nearby source masses is measured from the difference between adjacent gravity gradient values. Curvature measurements are of interest in geodesy studies and for the validation of gravitational models of the surrounding environment. The possibility of using such a scheme for a new determination of the Newtonian constant of gravity is also discussed.
5 pages, 3 figures
References in corpus (6)
- Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
- New determination of the fine structure constant and test of the quantum electrodynamics
- A New Method for Gravitational Wave Detection with Atomic Sensors
- Quantum Test of the Universality of Free Fall
- Precision measurement of gravity with cold atoms in an optical lattice and comparison with a classical gravimeter
- Atom interferometry gravity-gradiometer for the determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant G
Cited by in corpus (10)
- Measurement of the fine-structure constant as a test of the Standard Model
- Atom interferometry with the Sr optical clock transition
- Multi-Dimensional Atom Optics and Interferometry
- Simultaneous accurate determination of both gravity and its vertical gradient
- Improving the phase response of an atom interferometer by means of temporal pulse shaping
- New apparatus design for high-precision measurement ofG with atom interferometry
- Detection of Applied and Ambient Forces with a Matterwave Magnetic-Gradiometer
- Quantum interferometry in multi-mode systems
- Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity and fundamental tests of gravity
- Mining Measured Information from Text