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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

The application of Raman laser in measuring gravity acceleration

Ning Ru, Li Zhang, Yu Wang, Shangchun Fan

Published Dec 3, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Atom interferometry gravimeter with stimulated Raman transitions is realized by atom matter wave, it is now widely used in gravity measurements. We are now building a feasible system of cold atom gravimeter, it is based on the atom interferometry technology by coherently manipulating the cold atoms in a fountain with specific Raman lasers, the cold atom wave packet is splitted, combined, and then re-splitted in the process. Then the atomic wave packet will acquire different phase because of the different evolution path. The precise acceleration can be deduced through the precision measurement of atomic interference fringes phase, and this will be a high precision standard of acceleration. At present, the preparation of Raman laser and the precise control of the laser Frequency have been finished, and they have been proved to meet the requirements of the experiment.

DOI
10.1117/12.2073168

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Atom interferometry gravimeter with stimulated Raman transitions is realized by atom matter wave, it is now widely used in gravity measurements. We are now building a feasible system of cold atom gravimeter, it is based on the atom interferometry technology by coherently manipulating the cold atoms in a fountain with specific Raman lasers, the cold atom wave packet is splitted, combined, and then re-splitted in the process. Then the atomic wave packet will acquire different phase because of the different evolution path. The precise acceleration can be deduced through the precision measurement of atomic interference fringes phase, and this will be a high precision standard of acceleration. At present, the preparation of Raman laser and the precise control of the laser Frequency have been finished, and they have been proved to meet the requirements of the experiment.
Cold-atom interferometer based on stimulated Raman transition is interesting for both fundamental researches and precision measurements. Measuring g, the free fall acceleration, plays an important role in these applications. We describe the theory of atom interferometry, including the evolution of the atomic wavepacket in gravity field, the laser-atom interaction, and the interference of the atomic waves. In this article, we introduce the procedure of measuring g using atom interferometer, the experimental setup, and the tendency of the future development. The works of the domestic and international groups for g measurement are concluded. Furthermore, the noise limits and dominant systematic effects in atom gravimeters are analyzed. The suppressions of the background vibration, the Raman phase noise, and the evaluation of the main systematic effects, are introduced. Finally, the other applications using the atom interferometers for precision measurement are presented, such as in measuring the Newton’s gravitational constant, in testing the weak equivalence principle and the other fundamental applications in physics studies.
Cold atom interferometer based on two-photon stimulated Raman transition has been proved to be a promising way to measure g with higher precision. In this work, we first introduce the principle of atomic interference gravimetry, including the interaction between the atoms and light, the interferometry with the Raman beams and the measure of the g. Then our gravity acceleration measurement system will be introduced, including atomic fountain, Raman system and detection system. With this device, we can get the value of the g, with the uncertainty in the order of ten minus seven.
We demonstrate a precision measurement of local gravity acceleration g in Wuhan by a compact cold atom interferometer. The atom interferometer is in vertical Mach—Zehnder configuration realized using a π/2 - π - π/2 Raman pulse sequence. Cold atoms were prepared in a magneto-optical trap, launched upward to form an atom fountain, and then coherently manipulated to interfere by stimulated Raman transition. Population signal vs Raman laser phase was recorded as interference fringes, and the local gravity was deduced from the interference signal. We have obtained a resolution of 7 × 10 −9 g after an integration time of 236s under the best vibrational environment conditions. The absolute g value was derived from the chirp rate with a difference of 1.5 × 10 −7 g compared to the gravity reference value. The tidal phenomenon was observed by continuously monitoring the local gravity over 123 h.
Cold atom free-fall interferometers now realize state-of-the-art precision inertial sensors, opening perspectives towards embedded devices for applications and fundamental physics tests on earth and in space. The acceleration of gravity can be measured in a stimulated Raman transition interferometer where the acceleration under gravity of a cloud of freely falling atoms is sensed by three Raman pulses allowing to split, reflect and interfere atomic wave packets [1]. The gravimeter developped at SYRTE allows to measure the acceleration of gravity at state-of-the-art performances compared to the best classical absolute gravimeters, with a sensitivity of 2×10−8g over 1s and an exactitude of 5×10−9 g [2]. This exactitude is currently limited by wavefront aberrations of the lasers, sampled by residual transverse trajectories of the molasse-cooled cloud over the free fall. Unbalanced transverse trajectories will also bias the measurement due to Coriolis effect [3]. We will investigate the use of a colder atom source to reduce these systematic effects, by implementing Bose-Einstein condensation of the initial cloud, allowing both better position control and better focusing of our source.
Atomic gravimetry measures the gravitional acceleration of an ensemble of identical neutral atoms through the atom interferometry based on Raman two-photon transition, where the Raman lasers are used as “optical ruler" and the identical neutral atoms play the role of test mass and quantum storage of gravity field information. As the novel gravimetry system suffers no mechanical wear and works at a higher repetition rate, atom gravimetry can reach a much better short-term sensitivity than the classical falling-corner-cube counterpart, and the accuracy is reasonably well. Since the very first in-laboratory device built over 30 years ago, atomic gravimetry has matured to a versatile tool that offers both precise and accurate absolute gravity measurement to fundamental research and metrology, such as testing the weak equivalence principle or linking the mass and weight of the test mass in Watt (Kibble) balance. As the current rapid development of compact cold-atom gravimeters, atomic gravimetry is moving out of the laboratory to be used as a quantum enhancement of classical devices in dynamical measurement, such as geophysics survey, inertial navigation and space mission. We review the roadmap for the development of cold-atom absolute gravimetry, highlight recent advances in the dynamical measurement using compact cold atom gravimeters and discuss the associated technological challenges. In the future, with the maturity of its application in dynamical measurement or civil engineering and the innovation in atom interferometry theory, atomic gravimetry could play a more and more important role in our life.