Sensitive gravity-gradiometry with atom interferometry: progress towards an improved determination of the gravitational constant

TL;DR

This paper reports on a high-sensitivity atom interferometry gravity-gradiometer designed to improve the measurement of the gravitational constant G, demonstrating enhanced stability and signal-to-noise ratio for more precise results.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel atom interferometry setup with high-flux atomic sources and advanced laser systems for improved gravitational measurements.

Findings

Demonstrated long-term stability of the instrument

Achieved high signal-to-noise ratio in gravity gradient measurements

Paved the way for measurement precision below 100 ppm

Abstract

We here present a high sensitivity gravity-gradiometer based on atom interferometry. In our apparatus, two clouds of laser-cooled rubidium atoms are launched in fountain configuration and interrogated by a Raman interferometry sequence to probe the gradient of gravity field. We recently implemented a high-flux atomic source and a newly designed Raman lasers system in the instrument set-up. We discuss the applications towards a precise determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant G. The long-term stability of the instrument and the signal-to-noise ratio demonstrated here open interesting perspectives for pushing the measurement precision below the 100 ppm level.