A cold atom gravity gradiometer for field applications

重力传感提供了一种独特的方式，通过绘制局部密度变化图来遥感地面或表面的特征。特别是，在商业应用中，它是探测深层目标的首选传感技术，其中替代技术往往受到衰减或扩散的限制。然而，由于进行调查需要相当长的时间，重力并不常用。这受到当地环境振动的限制，导致每个测量点需要几分钟的时间。在这个项目中，我将开发一种用于现场应用的新型冷原子重力梯度仪-它能够实现对振动的非凡弹性，旨在将测量时间缩短到一秒-大大减少执行测量所需的时间和成本。实现这一点将使重力传感变得更加普遍，并能够更好地检测目标--对土木工程和考古等领域产生影响，并通过更准确地定位资产和缺陷，从而在路面上打更少和更小的洞，从而减少道路工程造成的道路拥堵，从而促进社会和经济效益。随着人们对英国工业的兴趣与日俱增，我的项目将专注于开发和优化传感器，以展示其在该领域的应用。这是一个相当大的实验挑战，需要在敏感度、便携性和健壮性方面改进现有技术。

Gravity sensing offers a unique way to remotely sense features through the ground or surfaces by mapping local density variations. In particular, in commercial applications it is the sensing technique of choice for detecting deep targets, where alternative techniques are often limited by attenuation or spread. However, gravity is not commonly used due to the considerable amount of time required to perform the surveys. This is limited by vibration in the local environment, causing each measurement point to take several minutes. In this project I will be developing a novel cold atom gravity gradiometer for field applications - which enables exceptional resilience against vibration, aiming to cut the measurement time to one second - drastically reducing the time and cost required to perform a survey. Achieving this will enable gravity sensing to become more pervasive and allow better detection of targets - having impact across areas such as civil engineering and archaeology, and pushing for social and economic benefits such as reductions in road congestion arising due to road works through better accuracy in locating assets and defects allowing fewer and smaller holes to be put into road surfaces. With a growing interest in UK industry, my project will focus on developing and optimising a sensor in order to demonstrate its use in the field. This is a considerable experimental challenge, requiring improvements over the state of the art in terms of sensitivity, portability and robustness.