A scalable high-performance magnetic shield for very long baseline atom interferometry
Étienne Wodey, Dorothee Tell, Ernst M. Rasel, Dennis Schlippert, R. Baur, U. Kissling, B. Kölliker, M. Lorenz, M. Marrer, U. Schläpfer, Megan Widmer, Christian Ufrecht, S. Stuiber, P. Fierlinger
Abstract
We report on the design, construction, and characterization of a 10 m-long high-performance magnetic shield for very long baseline atom interferometry. We achieve residual fields below 4 nT and longitudinal inhomogeneities below 2.5 nT/m over 8 m along the longitudinal direction. Our modular design can be extended to longer baselines without compromising the shielding performance. Such a setup constrains biases associated with magnetic field gradients to the sub-pm/s2 level in atomic matterwave accelerometry with rubidium atoms and paves the way toward tests of the universality of free fall with atomic test masses beyond the 10−13 level.