Absolute marine gravimetry with matter-wave interferometry.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29434193.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03040-2 and PMC identifier 5809417.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Measuring gravity from an aircraft or a ship is essential in geodesy, geophysics, mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, and navigation. Today, only relative sensors are available for onboard gravimetry. This is a major drawback because of the calibration and drift estimation procedures which lead to important operational constraints. Atom interferometry is a promising technology to obtain onboard absolute gravimeter. But, despite high performances obtained in static condition, no precise measurements were reported in dynamic. Here, we present absolute gravity measurements from a ship with a sensor based on atom interferometry. Despite rough sea conditions, we obtained precision below 10-5 m s-2. The atom gravimeter was also compared with a commercial spring gravimeter and showed better performances. This demonstration opens the way to the next generation of inertial sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope) based on atom interferometry which should provide high-precision absolute measurements from a moving platform.