High sensitivity tool for geophysical applications: a geometrically locked ring laser gyroscope

Abstract

We demonstrate that a middle sized 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 × 1.60 m 2 , and it lies in a plane orthogonal to the Earth’s 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. We verified that the prototype properties are compatible with the seismic requirements. The obtained long term stability is of the order of 3 nanorad/s, and the short term sensitivity is close to 2 n a n o r a d / s ⋅ H z − 1 / 2 . These results are limited only by the noisy environment; our laboratory is located in a building downtown.