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Updated: May 16, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Realization of a cold atom gyroscope in space
Jinting Li1,2, Xi Chen1, Danfang Zhang1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Division of Precision Measurement Physics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Abstract:
High-precision gyroscopes in space are essential for fundamental physics research and navigation. Due to its potential high precision, the cold atom gyroscope is expected to be one of the next generation of gyroscopes in space. Here, we report the first realization of a cold atom gyroscope, which was demonstrated by the atom interferometer installed in the China Space Station (CSS) as a payload. By compensating for the CSS's high dynamic rotation rate using a built-in piezoelectric mirror, spatial interference fringes in the interferometer are successfully obtained. Then, the optimized ratio of the Raman laser's angles is derived, the coefficients of the piezoelectric mirror are self-calibrated in orbit, and various systemic effects are corrected. We achieve a rotation measurement resolution of 50 μrad/s for a single shot and 17 μrad/s for an average number of 32. The measured rotation is -1142 ± 29 μrad/s and is compatible with that recorded by the classical gyroscope of the CSS. This study paves the way for developing high-precision cold atom gyroscopes in space.
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