Towards Mapping Gravity and High-order Derivatives with a Compact Atom Interferometer

Exploiting the nature of quantum phenomena, quantum technologies are developing rapidly towards precise sensing. Atom interferometers (AI) are robust quantum sensors and are being developed for measuring inertial forces. In contrast to classical sensors, atom interferometers use recoil momentum from photon and matter-wave interactions to coherently split and recombine matter-waves making AIs incredibly accurate and ideal sensors for precision measurements. Recently, transportable quantum gravimeters have been demonstrated for mobile gravimetry, however, they are limited to the second-order derivative of gravity, the gravity gradient. High-order gravity tensor is more sensitive to density variations, thus localizing and revealing the edge information of the gravity anomaly. We aim to develop the next-generation mobile quantum gravimeter with the capability of simultaneously mapping the vertical gravity, gravity gradient, and its second spatial derivative (curvature), and apply the quantum sensor for geophysics investigations. We optimize the AIs by driving the stimulated Raman transitions on the Rb hyperfine energy levels, maximizing the Rabi frequency, minimizing the single photon scattering rate, and zeroing the AC Stark shift. We test and characterize a novel diamond-shaped mirror for magneto-optically trapping three vertically separated cold atomic clouds using a single laser beam in order to reduce the complexity of forming three AIs necessary to resolve the gravity curvature.