Research being carried out by PML
SILENT Project
With the ever-developing new technologies and high-precision scientific instruments, the performance requirements of vibration isolation are more and more stringent. Gravitational- Wave Detectors (GWDs) are probably some of the most advanced of those high-precision scientific instruments. GWDs are basically kilometer-scale interferometers: devices capable of measuring the relative motion between two mirrors with high accuracy. The best state-of-the-art technologies, from many different domains of engineering, are used to isolate these mirrors from any external disturbances. The only remaining external factor that could cause a relative motion of the test mass is a distortion of space itself… Read more
FIeld QUantum gravity Sensors (FIQUgS Project)
The measurement of the gravity acceleration and of its variations, has proven to be a very powerful technique in the field of Earth sciences, and gravimeters have been used by geophysicists for several decades. Thanks to Newton’s law, we know that gravity at the surface of the Earth is influenced by the masses surrounding the instrument. Gravimetry, with a very high precision at the level of one part of a billion, thus allows the monitoring of many phenomena, from water resource availability to volcanic activity, and generally offers a capability to characterize subsurface mass variations… Read more
