Using Atomic Clocks and Quantum Gradiometers Onboard Satellites for
Determining the Earth's Gravity Field
Abstract
Satellite missions like GRACE (now followed by GRACE-FO) and GOCE have
remarkably advanced our knowledge on the global Earth’s gravity field,
by measuring the first and second derivatives of the gravitational
potential. However, a more precise gravity field model with better
spatial and temporal resolution is still highly required by various
geoscience disciplines such as oceanography, solid Earth physics,
geodesy, etc. New technologies based on quantum optics emerged and
quickly developed in the past years. They will enable novel observation
concepts and deliver gravimetric observations with an unprecedented
accuracy level in future. For the first time, optical clocks provide the
particular opportunity to directly observe gravity potential differences
through measuring the relativistic redshift between clocks connected by
dedicated links (“relativistic geodesy”). Moreover, cold atom
interferometry and optical gradiometers have extensively been studied.
They will potentially provide gravity gradient measurements with an
accuracy of about one order of magnitude better than the electrostatic
gradiometer that was used in GOCE. To figure out how these future
gravimetric observations may benefit the modelling of the Earth’s
gravity field, we ran simulations using multi-source data, including
gravity gradients, gravity accelerations and (satellite-based) clock
measurements. Estimated instrument errors are mapped to the gravity
field coefficients. Additionally, the individual contribution of each
type of the new observations is evaluated, including its spectral
behavior. Our results indicate that resulting gravity field solutions
might be one order of magnitude more accurate than the current
satellite-only models.