New modified Michelson's interferometer and its applications in metrology as new miniaturized absolute portable gravimeter

Abstract

We propose a modified Michelson's interferometer with some applications in dimensional metrology. The configuration of a Michelsons' interferometer using corner cubes instead of plane mirrors is further modified in a rectangular parallelogram. A double prism is introduced in one of the branches of the device in order to obtain a precision of 2J4 and an accuracy of 2/8. The same scheme can be applied to develop absolute portable gravimeters. We present an interferometer version enabling reducing the free fall dropping height less than 25 cm, which is half size of any available device of the same class. Another version of the same interferometer enables a theoretical doubling of the dropping rate and a reduced dropping length with an effective improvement of the measurement precision of g. This solution may lead to a portable absolute dynamic gravimeter. The paper discusses the mathematical model in term of transfer function of "g" and describes the modified Michelson's interferometer with a 'futuristic' solution for a dynamic portable absolute gravimeter.