First Direct Measurement of Gravity’s Curvature

Earth’s gravitational pull gradually decreases with increasing altitude, and researchers have detected the differences even over several vertical feet within a lab, using the extreme sensitivity of cold atoms. Now a team has taken the next step by measuring the change in this gravity gradient produced by a large mass, using measurements at three different heights. They say their technique could improve gravity-based mapping of variations in rock density in geology and prospecting, and it could also boost the precision of tests of general relativity and measurements of the gravitational constant.

The technique of atom interferometry enables distance measurements with extremely high precision, by exploiting the atoms’ quantum-mechanical wavelike nature. It has been used previously to measure the strength of gravitational fields and also the rate of change in those fields over some distance (the gradient). Together such measurements permit Newton’s gravitational constant G to be determined [1, 2]. It is currently known to within about 100 parts per million, a much lower precision than other fundamental constants. More accurate measurements would allow higher-precision tests of the theory of general relativity.

Measuring gravity at two close locations gives the gradient as the difference between the two divided by their separation distance; measuring at three locations gives the rate of change of the gradient, which is also called the curvature of the field. This experiment was proposed in 2002 [3], and now a team in Italy, led by Guglielmo Tino of the University of Florence and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), has carried it out. Previously, Tino and his colleagues determined G by measuring gravity at two different heights with a similar experiment [4].


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http://physics.aps.org/articles/v8/1