Space-borne Atom Interferometry for Tests of General Relativity

Quantum sensors based on the interference of matter waves provide an exceptional access to test the postulates of general relativity by comparing the free-fall acceleration of matter waves of different composition. Space-borne quantum tests of the universality of free fall (UFF) promise to exploit the full potential of these sensors due to long free-fall times, and to reach unprecedented performance beyond current limits set by classical experiments.

In this contribution, we present a dedicated satellite mission to test the UFF with ultra-cold atoms to 10^-17 as proposed to the ESA Voyage 2050 initiative [Battelier et al., arXiv:1908.11785 (2019)]. To this end, we highlight our model for suppressing spurious error terms [Loriani et al., PRD 102, 124043 (2020)] and outline our work on a dedicated simulator for satellite-based atom interferometry, which will be an indispensable tool for the detailed analysis of future space mission scenarios.