MAGIA: Using atom interferometry to determine the Newtonian gravitational constant
Year: 2003
Authors: Stuhler J., Fattori M., Petelski T., Tino G.M.
Autors Affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica and LENS, Universita di Firenze, INFN – Sezione di Firenze, Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy
Abstract: We describe our experiment MAGIA (misura accurata di G mediante interferometria atomica), in which we will use atom interferometry to perform a high precision measurement of the Newtonian gravitational constant G. Free-falling laser-cooled atoms in a vertical atomic fountain will be accelerated due to the gravitational potential of nearby source masses (SMs). Detecting this acceleration with techniques of Raman atom interferometry will enable us to assign a value to G. To suppress systematic effects we will implement a double-differential measurement. This includes launching two atom clouds in a gradiometer configuration and moving the SMs to different vertical positions. We briefly summarize the general idea of the MAGIA experiment and put in the context of other high precision G-measurements. We present the current status of the experiment and report on analyses of the expected measurement accuracy.
Journal/Review: JOURNAL OF OPTICS B-QUANTUM AND SEMICLASSICAL OPTICS
Volume: 5 (2) Pages from: to:
KeyWords: Acceleration; Doppler effect; Gravimeters; Gravitational effects; Interferometry; Laser applications; Magnetometers; Raman spectroscopy, Atom interferometry; Gradiometer; Misura accurata di G mediante interferometria atomica; Newtonian gravitational constant; Precision measurement; Raman interferometry, Atomic physicsDOI: 10.1088/1464-4266/5/2/361