Playing around with ring lasers

by Dr Bob Hurst (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

Thursday 5 Jun 2014, 15:00 → 16:30 Europe/Rome

250 (INFN edificio C)

At Canterbury we have developed ring laser gyroscopes over a period of nearly 20 years. These progressed from a first prototype, about 0.8 m square, up to the largest ever built, 40 m x 21 m. Our initial interests were wide because of the novelty of the technique: from fundamental physics through to applications such as observations of rotations associated with seismic waves. Much experience has been accumulated. In this talk I shall describe some of the more interesting aspects. I shall go on to describe our plans for measurement of absolute Earth rotation rate, aimed at determining Length of Day to a useful level of accuracy, and extending to the possibility of measuring relativistic precessions that (according to current theory) cause the Earth rotation rate relative to an inertial frame to be different from that inferred from observations of distant objects such as quasars. (This of course overlaps the interests of the INFN/University of Pisa GINGER project.) Our plans have been postponed for the meantime as a result of earthquake damage to our underground facility.