Physics

Aerospace engineering

Atom interferometer

Limiting

Ultracold neutrons

Mathematics

Atom (system on chip)

Systematic error

Optics

Statistics

Extrapolation

Ultracold atom

Engineering

Gravimeter

Embedded system

Atomic physics

Neutron

Metrology

Interferometry

Range (aeronautics)

Astronomical interferometer

Computer science

Quantum mechanics

Mechanical engineering

Quantum

New Journal of Physics

We report on the implementation of ultracold atoms as a source in a state of the art atom gravimeter. We perform gravity measurements with 10 nm s−2 statistical uncertainties in a so-far largely unexplored temperature range for such a high accuracy sensor, down to 50 nK. This allows for an improved characterization of the most limiting systematic effect, related to wavefront aberrations of light beamsplitters. A thorough model of the impact of this effect onto the measurement is developed and a method is proposed to correct for this bias based on the extrapolation of the measurements down to zero temperature. Finally, an uncertainty of 13 nm s−2 is obtained in the evaluation of this systematic effect, which can be improved further by performing measurements at even lower temperatures. Our results clearly demonstrate the benefit brought by ultracold atoms to the metrological study of free falling atom interferometers. By tackling their main limitation, the method presented here allows reaching record-breaking accuracies for inertial sensors based on atom interferometry.

Improving the accuracy of atom interferometers with ultracold sources