A cold atom gravity gradiometer for field applications

重力感应提供了一种独特的方式，通过绘制局部密度变化，通过地面或表面遥感特征。特别是在商业应用中，它是探测深层目标的首选传感技术，而其他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多的时间，重力法并不常用。这受到当地环境振动的限制，导致每个测量点需要几分钟。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，它具有出色的抗振动弹性，旨在将测量时间缩短到一秒，从而大大减少了执行调查所需的时间和成本。实现这一目标将使重力传感变得更加普遍，并允许更好地探测目标——对土木工程和考古学等领域产生影响，并推动社会和经济效益，例如通过更好地定位资产和缺陷，减少道路工程造成的道路拥堵，从而使路面上的洞更少、更小。随着对英国工业的兴趣日益浓厚，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。这是一项相当大的实验挑战，需要在灵敏度、可移植性和健壮性方面对现有技术进行改进。

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.