A two-state Kalman estimator for atomic gravimetry

Abstract

We present a two-state Kalman estimator of gravity acceleration and evaluate its performance by numerical simulations and post-measurement demonstration with real-world atomic gravimetry. We show that the estimator-enhanced gravimetry significantly improves upon both short-term sensitivity and long-term stability. The estimates of gravity acceleration demonstrate a \(\tau ^{1/2}\) feature well under white phase noise in the short term, and continue to improve as \(\tau ^{-1/2}\) or improve faster as \(\tau ^{-1}\) in the long term. This work validates the estimation of gravity acceleration as a key topic for future atomic gravimetry.

The performance of atomic gravimetry is limited by noises and other systematic or geophysical effects. By building a Kaman estimator rooted in the physics of atom interferometry, we realize significant improvements in both short-term sensitivity and long-term stability. This demonstration of estimator-enhanced gravimetry would be of great interest for static measurements of gravity, such as metrology or geophysics (Color online)