Cold Atom Gravimeter Research Articles

Construction of a Test Field for Relative Gravimeters in a Cave With a Cold Atom Gravimeter

Construction of a Test Field for Relative Gravimeters in a Cave With a Cold Atom Gravimeter

Potential of cold-atom airborne gravimetry to improve coastal gravity field and quasigeoid modelling

We investigate using the GIRAFE cold-atom gravimeter during an airborne gravity survey for improving gravity field and quasigeoid modelling. The study is conducted over the Bay of Biscay, France. Geoid/quasigeoid determination is usually a major challenge over such coastal areas due to scarce and inconsistent gravity data. In a first step, the GIRAFE dataset is analysed and compared with available surface gravity data as well as with global altimetry models from UCSD and DTU. The comparisons indicate that the DTU model is better than the UCSD model within around 10 km from the coastline. Furthermore, recent satellite altimeter missions significantly improve the altimetry models in coastal areas. A significant bias (− 4.00 mGal) in shipborne data is also found from this comparison. In a second step, eight quasigeoid solutions are calculated to evaluate the contribution of GIRAFE data. This contribution reaches 3 cm in terms of height anomaly for DTU21 while being much larger for UCSDv31 and shipborne data. Finally, the quasigeoid solutions are validated using GNSS-levelling data. The results indicate that using GIRAFE data improves by approximately 50% the quality of quasigeoid models over land near the coast. The highest accuracy, around 1 cm, is achieved when GIRAFE data are merged with refined gravity data. Importantly, the standard deviation is just 1.2 cm when compared with GNSS-levelling points if using only GIRAFE data over marine areas, which is very close to the 1 cm goal of geoid/quasigeoid model determination in modern geodesy. This study thus confirms the benefits of performing airborne gravity survey using quantum sensors.

Cold Atom Gravimeter Based on an Atomic Fountain and a Microwave Transition

A method based on measuring the shift of Ramsey spectral line in an atomic fountain in the gravitational field has been proposed to develop an atomic gravimeter involving the atomic fountain on ultracold atoms. The accuracy of the measurement of the gravitational acceleration with a fountain microwave frequency standard on Cs atoms is \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\delta g = 2 \ imes {{10}^{{ - 6}}}g{\ ext{/}}\\sqrt {{{\ au }_{{\ ext{a}}}}} $$\\end{document}. The achievable accuracy at the integration time τa = 10 000 s is \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\delta g \\approx 2 \ imes {{10}^{{ - 8}}}g \\approx 20{\\kern 1pt} $$\\end{document} μGal.

Research on the application of inertially stabilized platform in the dynamic measurement of cold atomic gravimeter

Dynamic gravity field measurement based on the cold atom absolute gravity measurement system has important applications in geological exploration, gravity field mapping and other fields. The inertial stabilized platform is the key component of the dynamic cold atom absolute gravity measurement system, which can isolate the interference of carrier angle motion and keep the atomic gravimeter probe in the horizontal attitude during the measurement process. In this paper, according to the dynamic measurement requirements of atomic gravimeter, a high-precision two-axis inertial stabilized platform system is designed. The relationship between attitude angle and gravity measurement error is analyzed, and the stability of the system is enhanced by lead-lag method. Then the static vertical vibration power spectrum of the platform is measured to consider its influence on dynamic gravity measurement. Finally, a dynamic gravity test experiment was conducted in the Yellow Sea to verify the attitude control accuracy of the platform, and the attitude data of the platform under different heading were evaluated. The attitude standard deviation of the platform was better than 4 × 10−5 rad, and the absolute gravity standard deviation of the linear round-trip measurement reached 1.49 mGal. The experimental data show that the inertial stabilized platform can meet the dynamic measurement requirements of the cold atom gravimeter.

A vibration correction system for cold atom gravimeter

Cold atom gravimeters are used to measure the absolute value of the gravitational acceleration. To mitigate the influence of seismic noise on the mirror, a vibration correction system is used. A commercial seismometer CMG-3ESPC is employed to measure the mirror vibration. The transfer function between the mirror vibration and the output of the seismometer is regarded as a proportional element with a time delay. The best proportional element and the best time delay are obtained by minimizing the standard deviation of the fitting residuals of the interference fringe with vibration correction. This system not only exhibits excellent environmental adaptability but also eliminates the need for rough estimation of local gravitational acceleration during the vibration correction process. The system was built on the homemade cold atom gravimeter to carry out experiments in the laboratory. Compared with the measurement results without vibration correction, the standard deviation of the gravity measurement results was reduced from Gal to Gal, resulting in a significant reduction by a factor of 28.7. Meanwhile, its sensitivity was significantly improved from 330.8 to 18.0 by performing vibration correction. In the future, this system is expected to carry out comprehensive verification experiments in more complex noisy environments.

A Truck-Borne System Based on Cold Atom Gravimeter for Measuring the Absolute Gravity in the Field.

The cold atom gravimeter (CAG) has proven to be a powerful quantum sensor for the high-precision measurement of gravity field, which can work stably for a long time in the laboratory. However, most CAGs cannot operate in the field due to their complex structure, large volume and poor environmental adaptability. In this paper, a home-made, miniaturized CAG is developed and a truck-borne system based on it is integrated to measure the absolute gravity in the field. The measurement performance of this system is evaluated by applying it to measurements of the gravity field around the Xianlin reservoir in Hangzhou City of China. The internal and external coincidence accuracies of this measurement system were demonstrated to be 35.4 μGal and 76.7 μGal, respectively. Furthermore, the theoretical values of the measured eight points are calculated by using a forward modeling of a local high-resolution digital elevation model, and the calculated values are found to be in good agreement with the measured values. The results of this paper show that this home-made, truck-borne CAG system is reliable, and it is expected to improve the efficiency of gravity surveying in the field.

Ship-borne dynamic absolute gravity measurement based on cold atom gravimeter

Cold atom gravimeter is gradually developing towards miniaturization, dynamics and practicality. It is of great significance to apply it to deep and far sea absolute gravity measurement and underwater long navigation time and high-precision navigation. At present, most cold atom gravimeters are still in the state of laboratory static base or quasi-static base measurement, which is difficult to meet the gravity measurement needs in dynamic application scenarios. Therefore, the research on "static to dynamic" of cold atom interferometric gravity measurement is very urgent and key. In this paper, the basic principle of dynamic measurement is analyzed, the basic method of combined measurement of cold atom gravimeter and accelerometer is given, a set of absolute dynamic gravity measurement system based on cold atom gravimeter and inertial stabilization platform is built, and the ship-borne dynamic measurement experiment is carried out by using the combined measurement method of cold atom gravimeter and traditional accelerometer. Firstly, the continuous absolute gravity measurement for about 40 h is carried out in the laboratory static environment to preliminarily evaluate the performance of the cold atom gravimeter. The sensitivity is 447 µGal/<inline-formula><tex-math id="M2">\begin{document}$\sqrt {{\text{Hz}}} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20220113_M2.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="11-20220113_M2.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, and the long-term stability can reach 2.7 µgal. On this basis, the ship-borne experiment is conducted, the survey ship sails on the lake at a speed of about 4.6 kn, and the ship-borne absolute dynamic gravity measurement is carried out by means of repeated survey lines. After evaluation, the internal coincidence accuracy of the four repeated survey lines is 2.272 mGal, and the external coincidence accuracy values of the four voyages are 2.331, 1.837, 3.988 and 2.589 mGal respectively. Finally, according to the experimental results, the possible problems are further analyzed and summarized. This experimental study provides preliminary verification and technical scheme reference for marine absolute dynamic gravity measurement.

Experiment on dynamic absolute gravity measurement based on cold atom gravimeter

Dynamic gravity measurements can improve the survey efficiency of the gravity field, and can play an important role in implementing the basic geological surveys, resource exploration, and geophysical research. Based on cold atom gravimeter, inertial stabilization platform and the movable vehicle device, a system for dynamically measuring absolute gravity is built, and the dynamic measurement experiments are carried out. Firstly, the noise power spectra of the vertical vibration are measured at different moving velocities, and the influence of such a vibration on the measurement of absolute gravity is analyzed theoretically. Besides, the influence on the contrasts and offsets of the atomic interference fringes are evaluated from different moving velocities, then the effect of vibration compensation in the dynamic measurement environment is analyzed. When the maximum moving speed is 5.50 cm/s and the maximum vibration amplitude is 0.1 m/s<sup>2</sup>, the atomic interference fringes can still be rebuilt based on the technology of vibration compensation. On this basis, the atomic interference fringes are obtained at different values of <i>T</i> and different moving velocities, then the absolute gravity value in the dynamic measurement environment is evaluated. After the correction of the systematic system and subtraction by the initial value of absolute gravity, the final measured result is (–1.22 ± 2.42) mGal. Finally, the experiment on the static absolute gravity is conducted, and the two values are found to be not much different from each other through comparing the static measurement data with the dynamic measurement data. The experiment of dynamic absolute gravity measurement in this paper may provide the helpful reference data for the dynamic absolute gravity measurement with moving vehicles.

Compact cold atom gravimeters and precise gravity measurement

Atomic gravimetry measures the gravitional acceleration of an ensemble of identical neutral atoms through the atom interferometry based on Raman two-photon transition, where the Raman lasers are used as “optical ruler" and the identical neutral atoms play the role of test mass and quantum storage of gravity field information. As the novel gravimetry system suffers no mechanical wear and works at a higher repetition rate, atom gravimetry can reach a much better short-term sensitivity than the classical falling-corner-cube counterpart, and the accuracy is reasonably well. Since the very first in-laboratory device built over 30 years ago, atomic gravimetry has matured to a versatile tool that offers both precise and accurate absolute gravity measurement to fundamental research and metrology, such as testing the weak equivalence principle or linking the mass and weight of the test mass in Watt (Kibble) balance. As the current rapid development of compact cold-atom gravimeters, atomic gravimetry is moving out of the laboratory to be used as a quantum enhancement of classical devices in dynamical measurement, such as geophysics survey, inertial navigation and space mission. We review the roadmap for the development of cold-atom absolute gravimetry, highlight recent advances in the dynamical measurement using compact cold atom gravimeters and discuss the associated technological challenges. In the future, with the maturity of its application in dynamical measurement or civil engineering and the innovation in atom interferometry theory, atomic gravimetry could play a more and more important role in our life.

Calibration of a superconducting gravimeter with an absolute atom gravimeter

We present a 27-days long common view measurement of an absolute cold atom gravimeter (CAG) and a relative iGrav superconducting gravimeter, which we use to calibrate the iGrav scale factor. This allowed us to push the CAG long-term stability down to the level of 0.5~nm.s$^{-2}$. We investigate the impact of the duration of the measurement on the uncertainty in the determination of the correlation factor and show that it is limited to about 3\textperthousand~by the coloured noise of our cold atom gravimeter. A 3-days long measurement session with an additional FG5X absolute gravimeter allows us to directly compare the calibration results obtained with two different absolute meters. Based on our analysis, we expect that with an improvement of its long term stability, the CAG will allow to calibrate the iGrav scale factor to better than the per mille level (1$\sigma$ level of confidence) after only one-day of concurrent measurements for maximum tidal amplitudes.

Phase locking technology for Raman laser system based on 1560 nm external cavity lasers

The technology of generating Raman laser is not only an important research content in the field of quantum precision measurement, but also a core technology of quantum inertial sensors such as cold atom gravimeter, gyroscope. For <sup>87</sup>Rb atoms, two 780-nm lasers with a frequency difference of 6.834 GHz and a stable phase are needed to generate Raman light. Raman lasers can be generated by optical phase-locked loops of two 780-nm narrow linewidth external cavity tunable semiconductor lasers (ECDL). But the system thus developed is complicated in structure and very poor in environmental adaptability. The other method to generate Raman laser is based on intracavity 1560-nm laser with frequency doubling and electro-optic modulation technology. This system is simple in structure and strong in environmental adaptability, but it will introduce sideband effects and cannot achieve phase lock due to the limit by the linewidth and feedback bandwidth performance of the laser. In view of this, based on two new 1560-nm external cavity lasers and a home-made phase-locked circuit, in this paper the phase lock of the laser is achieved, and a Raman laser with low phase noise is obtained. The phase noise of beat note signal is as low as –95 dBc/Hz at the Fourier frequency in a range from 1 kHz to 10 kHz. A comparison of this system with the phase-locked performance of the 780-nm dual laser and the hybrid dual laser shows that this scheme has a slight advantage. In addition, the effect of the phase-locking performance on the phase noise of the cold atom interferometer through the method of piecewise integration is analyzed in this work. The experimental results given in this work provide a scheme for developing a miniaturized Raman optical system suitable for external fields.

Fundamental principles, key enabling technologies, and research progress of atom chips

The laser cooling, trapping and manipulating of neutral atoms has become a valuable tool for scientists, providing innovative ways to probe the nature of reality and giving rise to transformative devices in the fields of precise measurement and quantum information processing. Unlike traditional complex and bulky atomic experimental facilities, atom chips, through the design, fabrication of surface-patterned microstructures, and the integration of devices on the substrates, can precisely control the magnetic, electric or optical fields on a micro-nano scale with low power consumption. It can realize strong trapping as well as coherent atomic manipulation. Since atom chip was first proposed twenty years ago, it has built a robust quantum platform for miniaturizing and integrating quantum optics and atomic physics tools on a chip. In this paper, first, we briefly review the development history of atom chips, then introduce the basic knowledge of micro potential traps and micro guides based on on-chip current-carrying wires. Afterwards, the key technologies about the chip material, design, fabrication, characterization and integration of atom chips are discussed in detail. We not only focus on the currently most active and successful areas - current carrying wires, but also look at more visionary approaches such as to the manipulation of atoms with real nano structures, say, carbon nano tubes. The design and fabrication principles of ideal atom chips are discussed as well. In the forth part, the worldwide plans and research projects involving with atom chip technologies are summarized, showing that many countries see this as an important foundational technology. Following that, the major developments in the application fields including atom clocks, atom interferometer gyroscope, cold atom gravimeter, etc are described. Finally, the challenges faced by atom chips towards practical application are pointed out and the prospects for their subsequent development are depicted.

High-Precision Quantum-Enhanced Gravimetry with a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

We show that the inherently large interatomic interactions of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) can enhance the sensitivity of a high precision cold-atom gravimeter beyond the shot-noise limit (SNL). Through detailed numerical simulation, we demonstrate that our scheme produces spin-squeezed states with variances up to 14dB below the SNL, and that absolute gravimetry measurement sensitivities between two and five times below the SNL are achievable with BECs between 10^{4} and 10^{6} in atom number. Our scheme is robust to phase diffusion, imperfect atom counting, and shot-to-shot variations in atom number and laser intensity. Our proposal is immediately achievable in current laboratories, since it needs only a small modification to existing state-of-the-art experiments and does not require additional guiding potentials or optical cavities.

A transportable quantum gravimeter employing delta-kick collimated Bose\u2013Einstein condensates

Gravimetry with low uncertainty and long-term stability opens up new fields of research in geodesy, especially in hydrology and volcanology. The main limitations in the accuracy of current generation cold atom gravimeters stem from the expansion rate and the residual centre-of-mass motion of their atomic test masses. Our transportable quantum gravimeter QG-1 aims at overcoming these limitations by performing atom interferometry with delta-kick collimated Bose–Einstein condensates generated by an atom chip. With our approach we anticipate to measure the local gravitational acceleration at geodetic campaigns with an uncertainty less than 1 nm/s2 surpassing the state-of-the-art classic and quantum based systems. In this paper, we discuss the design and performance assessment of QG-1.Graphical abstract

Novel quantum states with laser cooling and their detection

With the rapid development of the laser cooling techniques, we can realize coherent quantum state manipulation of atoms. Invaluable results, such as topological phase transitions with artificial gauge fields, phase transitions induced by many body interaction, the atomic fountain frequency standard, the gravity constant using an interferometer, the magic wave optical lattice frequency standard, the cold ion frequency standard and the cold atom gravimeter and gyroscope results, have been obtained with respect to various applications, including quantum phase transitions, simulation of the novel quantum states, and precise measurement of the cold atoms. The laser cooling techniques frequently break the previous accuracy records; thus, they are gradually setting the new quantum measurement standards. In addition, some of these techniques play vital roles in geological prospecting and national defense. In this review, we will focus on the novel quantum states induced by laser cooling and the corresponding phase transitions as well as the optical detection and manipulation of the quantum phases. To be specific, the energy spectrum in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with spin-orbital angular momentum coupling is discrete, and a first-order phase transition can be observed between the states having different angular momentums. We investigated the topological phase transitions induced by the many-body interactions, in which we observed that when using different filling numbers and interactions, topological phase transitions can be observed in a hexagonal optical lattice with high orbitals and different topological states can be indexed using the Chern numbers. Further, based on our investigation, we observed the occurence of a quantum phase transition between the novel superfluid states, i.e., the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov superfluid states to the Sarma superfluid states, owing to the imbalanced Feshbach resonance. Finally, we developed methods to measure the optical spectrum of the nP Rydberg states of the 87Rb atoms and detect the quantum states in optical lattices; in addition, we constructed a multicomponent BEC interferometer.

The gravity estimation with square-root unscented Kalman filter in the cold atom gravimeter

In the atomic gravimeter, the interference fringe is obtained by scanning the chirp rate of the Raman lasers to compensate for the gravity induced Doppler frequency shift and then the gravitational acceleration can be obtained by extracting the phase of the atomic interference fringe. The phase of the interference fringe is proportional to the chirp rate, therefore the accurate estimation of the chirp rate is the key issue to obtain accurate gravitational acceleration. In practice, the model for estimating the chirp rate is not perfect, and there is system state error. In this paper, we propose a square root unscented Kalman filter (SR-UKF) approach for estimating gravitational acceleration, which can take the system state error into account. The experiments on simulated and real data are performed to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the SR-UKF method, which can provide an alternative approach for the gravity estimation. In addition, it can be combined with the tidal model for gravity estimation, and can also be used for real-time gravity measurement.

A new type of compact gravimeter for long-term absolute gravity monitoring

Long-term absolute gravity monitoring has a wide range of applications in the field of geodesy, geophysics, seismology, volcanology, hydrology, etc. The traditional method of long-term absolute gravity monitoring is realized by the combination of absolute gravimeter and relative gravimeter. Here we report on a new type of compact gravimeter based on atom interferometry used for long-term absolute gravity measurements. The long-term absolute gravity monitoring could be carried out with only a single instrument. Over the course of a month we took long-term absolute gravity measurements in a seismic station. With an interrogation time of 120 ms and a repetition rate of 2 Hz, the sensitivity of our cold atom gravimeter reaches 300 without any vibration isolation system, and the gravity residual fluctuations are within ±60 µGal.

Influence of Raman laser sidebands effect on the measurement accuracy of cold atom gravimeter

The technology of electro-optic modulation is one of the several methods of generating the Raman beams. The experimental system based on this method is simple and much easier to implement, and the environmental adaptability is strong as well. However, this kind of modulation technology will produce additional laser lines, which may affect the measurement accuracy of cold atom gravimeter. Based on a homemade transportable cold atom gravimeter, the influence of Raman sideband effect on the accuracy of cold atom gravimeter is investigated in this paper. We analyze in detail the relationship between Raman sideband effect and some experimental parameters, such as the height of Raman retro-reflection mirror, the time of free fall of the atoms, the detuning of Raman laser, etc. It is found that those parameters have a dominant influence on the measured gravity resulting from Raman sideband effect. Besides, it is also found that the gravity measurements will be sensitive again to some experimental parameters in the case of Raman sideband effect while these parameters are usually insensitive in case of laser system without sideband effect. Finally, we investigate the relationship between Raman sideband effect and Raman detuning, and presente a method of evaluating the gravity induced by Raman sideband effect. The experimental results in this paper can provide a reference for reducing the influence of Raman sideband effect on the accuracy evaluation of cold atomic gravimeter.

Participation in the absolute gravity comparison with a compact cold atom gravimeter

The first Asia-Pacific Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (APMP.M.G-K1) was organized by the National Institute of Metrology (NIM) of China from December 21, 2015 to March 25, 2016 in Changping, Beijing. Our compact cold atom gravimeter (CCAG) was transported from Hangzhou to Beijing with a long distance of about 1200 km to participate in this comparison. The CCAG is the only one, to the best of our knowledge, that is based on the principle of atom interferometry among all the instruments. Absolute gravity in the indicated three test sites has been measured as requested by the organizer. The sensitivity of our CCAG is estimated to be 90 μGal/Hz, even when the measurements are carried out without any vibration isolation. Besides, the accuracy of this gravimeter has been evaluated to be about 19 μGal by considering the significant system errors. Our results show a good agreement with the given reference value.

Measurement of absolute gravity based on cold atom gravimeter at large tilt angle

The tilt angle of a cold atom gravimeter (CAG) could have a significant influence on the measurement of absolute gravity. The measurement, manipulation, and compensation of the tilt for CAG need to be conducted in order to obtain a high-accuracy absolute gravity measurement. In this paper, firstly, the influences of tilt on absolute gravity measurement under four different conditions are analyzed theoretically by taking into account the position of vacuum system relative to Raman retro-reflection mirror. Then, the experimental investigation is carried out and it is found that the measured results agree well with the theoretical prediction curves. According to the analysis above, we design a scheme for absolute gravity measurement based on two inclinometers, mainly to solve the problem of long-term tilt drift of CAG especially in harsh measurement environment. In this scheme, a high-resolution inclinometer is used to record the tilt angle of Raman retro-reflection mirror, which is fixed on a passive vibration isolation platform. Besides, another inclinometer is utilized to monitor the tilt angle of vacuum chamber of the CAG. By doing so, the vibration noise can be suppressed and the tilt data can be measured with a high precision. Finally, the experimental verification of this proposal is carried out based on our homemade compact cold atom gravimeter, and the high accuracy absolute gravity measurement is realized in a complex workshop environment. Since the vibration noise of Raman mirror is improved by using the vibration isolation platform, the sensitivity of our CAG can reach 319 μGal √Hz. Besides, we measure the long-term changes of gravity with time and find that the experimental results are consistent with the curves calculated by theoretical tidal model. Moreover, due to the precise measurement and compensation for the tilt drift, the accuracy of our CAG is estimated at 12.3 μGal. In order to evaluate this system accuracy, a comparison between our CAG and the FG5 at the same measured site is made. The absolute gravity values determined by both gravimeters coincide with each other. In this paper, we provide a feasible scheme for measuring the absolute gravity in the complex environment. The experimental demonstration of this measurement scheme is performed thereby acquiring some valuable reference data for the practical use of CAG.