Abstract
We report on the design, construction, and characterization of a 10 m-long high-performance magnetic shield for very long baseline atom interferometry. We achieve residual fields below 4 nT and longitudinal inhomogeneities below 2.5 nT/m over 8 m along the longitudinal direction. Our modular design can be extended to longer baselines without compromising the shielding performance. Such a setup constrains biases associated with magnetic field gradients to the sub-pm/s2 level in atomic matterwave accelerometry with rubidium atoms and paves the way toward tests of the universality of free fall with atomic test masses beyond the 10-13 level.
Highlights
Light pulse atom interferometers are powerful tools for modern precision metrology.1–3 They exploit the fine and well understood control of matter waves by light to achieve record instabilities and inaccuracies in the precision measurement of forces and other inertial quantities.4–9 In the conventional Kasevich–Chu geometry,10 the phase sensitivity of these interferometers scales linearly with the enclosed space-time area
Inspired by the layout scitation.org/journal/rsi of magnetically shielded rooms,16 we report on the design, construction, and characterization of a 10 m-long magnetic shield for the Hannover Very Long Baseline Atom Interferometry (VLBAI) facility
We reported on the design, construction, and characterization of a 10 m high-performance magnetic shield with application in very long baseline atom interferometry, achieving residual fields below 4 nT and longitudinal gradients smaller than 2.5 nT/m over the central 8 m
Summary
Light pulse atom interferometers are powerful tools for modern precision metrology. They exploit the fine and well understood control of matter waves by light to achieve record instabilities and inaccuracies in the precision measurement of forces and other inertial quantities. In the conventional Kasevich–Chu geometry, the phase sensitivity of these interferometers scales linearly with the enclosed space-time area. Magnetic gradients at the few nT/m level or better along baselines of several meters are, required to satisfy the accuracy budget of these large scale atom interferometers at the sub-nm/s2 level, compatible with their target instability.. The homogeneity of the shielding material’s permeability is key to ensure a uniform magnetization of the shield This is, challenging on the lengths required by large scale atom interferometers since the production of homogeneous extended curved sheet metal is problematic, as well as the gap-free and reproducible junction of several pieces. A commonly used solution is to produce a fully welded assembly, which is subsequently hydrogen annealed to ensure homogeneous properties of the shielding material.15 This is, impractical due to the limited availability of suitable furnaces and lacks scalability for future, possibly larger applications. We assess the shield’s performance with residual field and dynamical shielding factor measurements and discuss its application in precision atom interferometry
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