TY - JOUR

T1 - Concept study and preliminary design of a cold atom interferometer for space gravity gradiometry

AU - Trimeche, A.

AU - Battelier, B.

AU - Becker, D.

AU - Bertoldi, A.

AU - Bouyer, P.

AU - Braxmaier, C.

AU - Charron, E.

AU - Corgier, R.

AU - Cornelius, M.

AU - Douch, K.

AU - Gaaloul, N.

AU - Herrmann, S.

AU - Müller, J.

AU - Rasel, E.

AU - Schubert, C.

AU - Wu, H.

AU - Pereira Dos Santos, F.

N1 - Funding Information: This work has been carried out in the context of the 'Study of a Cold Atom Interferometer Gravity Gradiometer Sensor and Mission Concepts', supported by the European Space Agency through Contract No. 4000112677/14/NL/MP. The authors affiliated to the IQ acknowledge financial support by 'Niedersächsisches Vorab' through the 'Quantum- and Nano- Metrology (QUANOMET)' initiative within the project QT3, and by the German Space Agency DLR with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under the Grant Nos. 50 WP 1431 and 1700. The presented work is supported by the CRC 1128 geo-Q within the projects A01 and A02, the EXC 2123 Quantum Frontiers within the research units B02 and B05. NG, ER and CS acknowledge financial support from "Niedersächsisches Vorab" through "Förderung von Wissenschaft und Technik in Forschung und Lehre" for the initial funding of research in the new DLR-SI Institute.

PY - 2019/11

Y1 - 2019/11

N2 - We study a space-based gravity gradiometer based on cold atom interferometry and its potential for the Earth's gravitational field mapping. The instrument architecture has been proposed in Carraz et al (2014 Microgravity Sci. Technol. 26 139) and enables high-sensitivity measurements of gravity gradients by using atom interferometers in a differential accelerometer configuration. We present the design of the instrument including its subsystems and analyze the mission scenario, for which we derive the expected instrument performances, the requirements on the sensor and its key subsystems, and the expected impact on the recovery of the Earth gravity field.

AB - We study a space-based gravity gradiometer based on cold atom interferometry and its potential for the Earth's gravitational field mapping. The instrument architecture has been proposed in Carraz et al (2014 Microgravity Sci. Technol. 26 139) and enables high-sensitivity measurements of gravity gradients by using atom interferometers in a differential accelerometer configuration. We present the design of the instrument including its subsystems and analyze the mission scenario, for which we derive the expected instrument performances, the requirements on the sensor and its key subsystems, and the expected impact on the recovery of the Earth gravity field.

KW - atom interferometry

KW - geodesy

KW - gradiometer

KW - gravimetry

KW - inertial sensors

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075609466&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.48550/arXiv.1903.09828

DO - 10.48550/arXiv.1903.09828

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85075609466

VL - 36

JO - Classical and quantum gravity

JF - Classical and quantum gravity

SN - 0264-9381

IS - 21

M1 - 215004

ER -