Research Area A

Research Area A develops new quantum sensors for application in geodesy, namely clocks and atomic gravity sensors, both in compact transportable and in large-scale stationary configurations.

Large-scale devices such as a new 10 m atom fountain VLBAI (Very Large Baseline Atom Interferometry) will enable experimental gravimetry with very high sensitivity. Transportable devices will be employed for observing temporal gravity and mass changes in regional campaigns, but the atom gravimeters have to be downsized considerably for field use. For this purpose, we develop chip-scale atomic gravimeters with BEC (Bose Einstein Condensate) atom sources.

The second building block of Research Area A is the operation and advancement of optical clocks and fibre connections to create clock networks. The measurement of relativistic gravitational redshift by optical clocks opens an entirely new toolbox with a height resolution beyond classical geodetic techniques.