Absolute marine gravimetry with matter-wave interferometry

Y. Bidel (1) , N. Zahzam (1) , C. Blanchard (1) , A. Bonnin (1) , Malo Cadoret (1, 2) , A. Bresson (1) , D. Rouxel (3) , M. Lequentrec-Lalancette (3)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Palaiseau]
2 LCM - Laboratoire commun de métrologie LNE-CNAM
3 SHOM - Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine

Measuring gravity from an aircraft or a ship is essential in geodesy, geophysics, mineral and hydrocarbon exploration, and navigation. Today, only relative sensors are available for onboard gravimetry. This is a major drawback because of the calibration and drift estimation procedures which lead to important operational constraints. Atom interferometry is a promising technology to obtain onboard absolute gravimeter. But, despite high performances obtained in static condition, no precise measurements were reported in dynamic. Here, we present absolute gravity measurements from a ship with a sensor based on atom inter-ferometry. Despite rough sea conditions, we obtained precision below 10 −5 m s −2. The atom gravimeter was also compared with a commercial spring gravimeter and showed better performances. This demonstration opens the way to the next generation of inertial sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope) based on atom interferometry which should provide high-precision absolute measurements from a moving platform.

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]

Y. Bidel, N. Zahzam, C. Blanchard, A. Bonnin, Malo Cadoret, et al.. Absolute marine gravimetry with matter-wave interferometry. Nature Communications, 2018, 9, pp.627. ⟨10.1038/s41467-018-03040-2⟩. ⟨hal-01727834⟩