STE-QUEST—test of the universality of free fall using cold atom interferometry

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/31/11/115010MaRDI QIDQ4979648zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors

Publication date 24 June 2014

Published in Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.5980

zbMATH Keywords

quantum equivalence principle space testspacetime explorerSTE-QUESTUFFuniversality of free fallweak equivalence principle

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Observational and experimental questions in relativity and gravitational theory (83B05) Equations of motion in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C10) Gravitational waves (83C35) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Relativistic gravitational theories other than Einstein's, including asymmetric field theories (83D05) Galactic and stellar dynamics (85A05)

Abstract: The theory of general relativity describes macroscopic phenomena driven by the influence of gravity while quantum mechanics brilliantly accounts for microscopic effects. Despite their tremendous individual success, a complete unification of fundamental interactions is missing and remains one of the most challenging and important quests in modern theoretical physics. The STE-QUEST satellite mission, proposed as a medium-size mission within the Cosmic Vision program of the European Space Agency (ESA), aims for testing general relativity with high precision in two experiments by performing a measurement of the gravitational redshift of the Sun and the Moon by comparing terrestrial clocks, and by performing a test of the Universality of Free Fall of matter waves in the gravitational field of Earth comparing the trajectory of two Bose-Einstein condensates of Rb85 and Rb87. The two ultracold atom clouds are monitored very precisely thanks to techniques of atom interferometry. This allows to reach down to an uncertainty in the E"otv"os parameter of at least 2x10E-15. In this paper, we report about the results of the phase A mission study of the atom interferometer instrument covering the description of the main payload elements, the atomic source concept, and the systematic error sources.

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Cited in

(7)

• Testing the universality of free fall for charged particles in space
• Experiments in fundamental physics scheduled and in development for the ISS
• Analysis of Sun/Moon gravitational redshift tests with the STE-QUEST space mission
• Mechanisms of matter-wave diffraction and their application to interferometers
• Gravitational decoherence
• Representation-free description of light-pulse atom interferometry including non-inertial effects
• Gravity-induced geometric spin Hall effect of freely falling quantum particle

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