Noise level of a ring laser gyroscope in the femto-rad/s range

Abstract

Absolute angular rotation rate measurements with sensitivity better than prad/s would be beneficial for fundamental science investigations. On this regard, large frame Earth based ring laser gyroscopes are top instrumentation as far as bandwidth, long--term operation, and sensitivity are concerned. Here, we demonstrate that the GINGERINO active--ring laser upper limiting noise is close to $2\times 10^{-15}$ rad/s for $\sim 2\times 10^5$ s of integration time, as estimated by the Allan deviation evaluated in a differential measurement scheme. This is more than a factor 10 better than the theoretical prediction so far accounted for ideal ring lasers shot--noise with the two beams counter--propagating inside the cavity considered as two independent propagating modes. This feature is related to the peculiarity of real ring laser system dynamics that causes phase cross--talking among the two counter--propagating modes. In this context, the independent beam model is, then, not applicable and the measured noise limit falls below the expected one.

6 pages, 5 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. Supplementary material available from the authors

References in corpus (6)

• Testing general relativity by means of ringlasers
• Generation of entanglement from mechanical rotation
• Reaching the sensitivity limit of a Sagnac gyroscope through linear regression analysis
• Controlling Photon Entanglement with Mechanical Rotation
• A high sensitivity tool for geophysical applications: A geometrically locked Ring Laser Gyroscope
• GINGER

Cited by in corpus (3)

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• Generating quantum non-local entanglement with mechanical rotations