12.5 - Laser-interferometer system for the determination of the acceleration of gravity

Abstract

A system is described for determining the acceleration of gravity using a stablized He-Ne laser as the light source in a Michelson-type interferometer which incorporates a freely falling corner reflector as one of its mirrors. The method effectively utilizes the most precise standards presently available for the measurement of length and time and is capable of an accuracy of better than 5 parts in 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">8</sup> .