TY - JOUR

T1 - Resolution of the colocation problem in satellite quantum tests of the universality of free fall

AU - Loriani, Sina

AU - Schubert, Christian

AU - Schlippert, Dennis

AU - Ertmer, Wolfgang

AU - Pereira Dos Santos, Franck

AU - Rasel, Ernst Maria

AU - Gaaloul, Naceur

AU - Wolf, Peter

N1 - Funding Information: We acknowledge discussions with Holger Ahlers, Robin Corgier, Pacôme Delva, Florian Fitzek, Christine Guerlin, Thomas Hensel, Hélène Pihan Le-Bars, Albert Roura, Etienne Savalle, Jan-Niclas Siemß, Christian Ufrecht, and Étienne Wodey. Moreover, we acknowledge financial support from DFG through CRC 1227 (DQ-mat), Projects No. B07 and No. A05. The presented work is also supported by CRC 1128 geo-Q and the German Space Agency (DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) due to an enactment of the German Bundestag under Grants No. 50WM1641 and No. 50WM2060. Furthermore, we acknowledge financial support from ”Niedersächsisches Vorab” through the ”Quantum- and Nano- Metrology (QUANOMET)” initiative within the project QT3 and through ”Förderung von Wissenschaft und Technik in Forschung und Lehre” for the initial funding of research in the new DLR-SI Institute. Moreover, this work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germanys Excellence Strategy EXC-2123 QuantumFrontiers Grant No. 390837967. S. L. wishes to acknowledge IP@Leibniz, a program of Leibniz Universität Hannover promoted by the German Academic Exchange Service and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. D. S. gratefully acknowledges funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the funding program Photonics Research Germany under Contract No. 13N14875.

PY - 2020/12/18

Y1 - 2020/12/18

N2 - A major challenge common to all Galilean drop tests of the universality of free fall (UFF) is the required control over the initial kinematics of the two test masses upon release due to coupling to gravity gradients and rotations. In this work, we consider a space-borne test of the UFF based on atom interferometry and show that this detrimental effect can be mitigated at the 10-18 level given an initial differential position (velocity) uncertainty in the order of μm (μm/s) of the test masses. This corresponds to a relaxation of the source control by several orders of magnitude with respect to comparable mission scenarios, such as the STE-QUEST mission proposal reported in [D. N. Aguilera et al., Classical Quantum Gravity 31, 115010 (2014)CQGRDG0264-938110.1088/0264-9381/31/11/115010]. Our twofold mitigation strategy extends a compensation mechanism that is already established in terrestrial experiments to satellite missions with varying gravity gradients and exploits the spectral distribution of the systematics. We assess the experimental feasibility and find that the moderate parameters of the proposed scheme are in line with technological capabilities. The described attenuation of the gravity-gradient-induced uncertainty removes one major obstacle in quantum tests of the UFF and allows us to consider mission scenarios with target accuracies beyond the state of the art.

AB - A major challenge common to all Galilean drop tests of the universality of free fall (UFF) is the required control over the initial kinematics of the two test masses upon release due to coupling to gravity gradients and rotations. In this work, we consider a space-borne test of the UFF based on atom interferometry and show that this detrimental effect can be mitigated at the 10-18 level given an initial differential position (velocity) uncertainty in the order of μm (μm/s) of the test masses. This corresponds to a relaxation of the source control by several orders of magnitude with respect to comparable mission scenarios, such as the STE-QUEST mission proposal reported in [D. N. Aguilera et al., Classical Quantum Gravity 31, 115010 (2014)CQGRDG0264-938110.1088/0264-9381/31/11/115010]. Our twofold mitigation strategy extends a compensation mechanism that is already established in terrestrial experiments to satellite missions with varying gravity gradients and exploits the spectral distribution of the systematics. We assess the experimental feasibility and find that the moderate parameters of the proposed scheme are in line with technological capabilities. The described attenuation of the gravity-gradient-induced uncertainty removes one major obstacle in quantum tests of the UFF and allows us to consider mission scenarios with target accuracies beyond the state of the art.

KW - quant-ph

KW - gr-qc

KW - physics.atom-ph

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098215231&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.124043

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.124043

M3 - Article

VL - 102

JO - Physical Review D

JF - Physical Review D

SN - 2470-0010

IS - 12

M1 - 124043

ER -