By Rémi Geiger (Observatoire de Paris)
Abstract: After more than 25 years of fundamental research, atom interferometers have reached sensitivity and accuracy levels competing with or beating inertial sensors based on different technologies. Cold-atom interferometers offer interesting applications in geosciences (measurements of the acceleration of free fall or of the Earth rotation rate), inertial sensing (autonomous positioning of a mobile), metrology (redefinition of the kilogram) and fundamental physics (tests of the laws of gravitation, gravitational wave astronomy). In this seminar, I will present the principle of an atom interferometer and describe experiments performed at the SYRTE laboratory in the last years to illustrate the possible applications of cold-atom inertial sensors.
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