Measurement of the quality factor of a new low-frequency differential accelerometer for testing the equivalence principle

V Iafolla; C Lefevre; E Fiorenza; F Santoli; S Nozzoli; C Magnafico; M Lucente; D Lucchesi; R Peron; I I Shapiro; S Glashow; E C Lorenzini

doi:10.1063/1.4861349

Measurement of the quality factor of a new low-frequency differential accelerometer for testing the equivalence principle

Rev Sci Instrum. 2014 Jan;85(1):014502. doi: 10.1063/1.4861349.

Authors

V Iafolla¹, C Lefevre¹, E Fiorenza¹, F Santoli¹, S Nozzoli¹, C Magnafico¹, M Lucente¹, D Lucchesi¹, R Peron¹, I I Shapiro², S Glashow³, E C Lorenzini⁴

Affiliations

¹ Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (IAPS) and Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Roma, Italy.
² Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
³ Physics Department, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
⁴ Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Universita' degli Studi di Padova, Padova, Italy.

PMID: 24517790
DOI: 10.1063/1.4861349

Abstract

A cryogenic differential accelerometer has been developed to test the weak equivalence principle to a few parts in 10(15) within the framework of the general relativity accuracy test in an Einstein elevator experiment. The prototype sensor was designed to identify, address, and solve the major issues associated with various aspects of the experiment. This paper illustrates the measurements conducted on this prototype sensor to attain a high quality factor (Q ∼ 10(5)) at low frequencies (<20 Hz). Such a value is necessary for reducing the Brownian noise to match the target acceleration noise of 10(-14) g/√Hz, hence providing the desired experimental accuracy.