1. High sensitivity tool for geophysical applications: a geometrically locked ring laser gyroscope
- Author
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E. Maccioni, N. Beverini, G. Carelli, G. Di Somma, A. Di Virgilio, and P. Marsili
- Subjects
Physics - Instrumentation and Detectors ,Physics::Optics ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Engineering (miscellaneous) ,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics ,Physics - Optics ,Optics (physics.optics) - Abstract
This work demonstrates that a middle size ring laser gyroscope (RLG) can be a very sensitive and robust instrument for rotational seismology, even if it operates in a quite noisy environment. The RLG has a square cavity, $1.60\times 1.60$ m$^2$, and it lies in a plane orthogonal to the Earth rotational axis. The Fabry-Perot optical cavities along the diagonals of the square were accessed and their lengths were locked to a reference laser. Through a quite simple locking circuit, we were able to keep the sensor fully operative for 14 days. The obtained long term stability is of the order of 3~nanorad/s and the short term sensitivity close is to 2~nanorad/s$\cdot$Hz$^{-1/2}$. These results are limited only by the noisy environment, our laboratory is located in a building downtown., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 25 references
- Published
- 2023