Shift evaluation of the atomic gravimeter NIM-AGRb-1 and its comparison with FG5X

Abstract

A mobile atomic absolute gravimeter NIM-AGRb-1 based on light-pulse atom interferometer has been built, evaluated by the National Institute of Metrology (NIM) China, and participated in the pilot study of the International Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (CCM.G-K2.2017) held at NIM Changping Beijing in October 2017. The sensitivity of the gravimeter is 44 µGal Hz −1/2 (1 µGal = 10 −8 m s −2 ≈ 10 −9 g) and its instability reaches as small as 0.2 µGal when averaged over 30 000 s. The instrumental and environmental effects were evaluated and corrected with a total uncertainty of 5.2 µGal. The absolute g measured by NIM-AGRb-1 was compared to that of a commercial FG5X-249 optical gravimeter with the two devices operating side by side in the same laboratory and their results agree within −0.2(6.3) µGal. NIM-AGRb-1 also demonstrated continuous operation over a period of more than 500 h.

High-accuracy inertial measurements with cold-atom sensors

“…59 ). Since then, the technology of atomic gravity sensors has considerably grown in maturity, as assessed by some major achievements, such as i) the participation since 2009 to CIPM Key Comparisons (KC) and Euramet comparisons of absolute gravimeters [60][61][62] , in 2017, even if not included in the 3 rd KC 63 , four atom gravimeters developed in China 39,[64][65][66] have participated to the associated pilot study; ii) the demonstration of on board measurements, in a ship 67 and a plane 68 and iii) the industrial development and commercial product offer of atom gravimeters at a competitive level of performance 69 . In total, about 30 research groups and private companies are today working on the development of atomic gravity sensors.…”

“…So far, atom gravimeters have been mainly developed in or for laboratorytype environments, where they can reach excellent short term and long term stability, better than classical corner cube gravimeters 33,79,80 . There, they allow for recording continuous series 57,64,80 , a mode of operation usually restricted to relative, spring or superconducting, gravimeters. Figure 8 displays an example for such signal.…”

Gravity surveys using a mobile atom interferometer

“…Although spring-based gravimeters and falling corner cube gravimeters are popular transportable instruments, atomic ones are developing rapidly. Atomic and classical gravimeters have been compared in the laboratory ( 17 , 18 , 20 , 27 ). Spring-based gravimeters can measure gravity variations with a sensitivity of tens of μGal/Hz, but their accuracy depends on the compensation of spring drifts and reference to gravity stations with known absolute gravity.…”

A high-flux, adjustable, compact cold-atom source

“…Cold-atom quantum technology is increasingly being reimagined from research apparatus into practical devices operating in real-world environments. These precision measuring instruments provide significant improvement in performance over classical techniques in applications including timekeeping [1][2][3][4][5], gravimetry [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and inertial sensing for navigation [16][17][18][19]. Compact cold-atom devices are also being developed for space-based experiments for gravity mapping, navigation and communications, as well as fundamental physics research in general relativity, dark matter and gravitational waves [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”