The NIM Inertial Mass Measurement Project

TL;DR

This paper describes the NIM inertial mass measurement project aimed at precisely determining the Planck constant to compare with gravitational mass measurements, involving experimental setup and initial results.

Contribution

It introduces a new inertial mass measurement approach and reports initial prototype results with relative uncertainty in the order of 10^-4.

Findings

Prototype achieved Planck constant measurement with several parts in 10^4 uncertainty

Experimental investigations validate the measurement principle

Provides a basis for comparison with gravitational mass measurements

Abstract

An inertial mass measurement project, which is expected to precisely measure the Planck constant, $h$, for possible comparisons with known gravitational mass measurement projects, e.g., the watt balance and the Avogadro project, is being carried out at the National Institute of Metrology, China. The principle, apparatus, and experimental investigations of the inertial mass measurement are presented. The prototype of the experiment and the Planck constant with relative uncertainty of several parts in $10^{4}$ have been achieved for principle testing.