München 2004 – scientific programme

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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 37: Poster Teilchenoptik

Q 37.3: Poster

Thursday, March 25, 2004, 14:00–16:00, Schellingstr. 3

MAGIA – Towards an atom interferometric determination of the Newtonian gravitational constant — •Jürgen Stuhler¹, Marco Fattori², Giacomo Lamporesi², Torsten Petelski², Marco Prevedelli³, and Guglielmo Maria Tino² — ¹5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, D-70550 Stuttgart — ²Dipartimento di Fisica and LENS, Universita’ di Firenze; INFN - Sezione di Firenze, Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy — ³Dipartimento di Chimica Fisica ed Inorganica, Universita’ di Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 4, I-40136 Bologna, Italy

Our experiment MAGIA (Misura Accurata di G mediante Interferometria Atomica) aims at the high precision measurement of the Newtonian gravitational constant G, which is the least accurately known fundamental physical constant [1]. MAGIA will use the technique of Raman atom interferometry to probe the acceleration of free falling atoms within a Rb fountain. The modification of this acceleration due to the gravitational potential of external source masses will be detected in a double differential way [2] and used to assign a value to G. We present the general idea of MAGIA and report on the current status of the experiment.

[1] P.J. Mohr and B.N. Taylor, Rev. Mod. Phys. 72, 351 (2000). [2] J. Stuhler et al., J. Opt. B 5, S75 (2003).