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Variations in the Earth’s rotation rate measured with a ring laser interferometer

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 1054–1058 (2023)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 02 October 2023

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Abstract

An exact knowledge of the instantaneous Earth’s rotation rate is indispensable for accurate navigation and geolocation. Fluctuations in the length of sidereal day are caused by momentum exchange between the fluids of the Earth (namely, the atmosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere) and the solid Earth. Since a multitude of different globally distributed and independent mass transport phenomena are involved, the resultant effect on the Earth’s rotation is not predictable and needs to be continuously measured. Here we report the observation of minute variations in the rotation rate of the Earth at the level of five parts per billion, namely, with a resolution of a few milliseconds over 120 days of continuous measurements. We employ an inertial self-contained measurement technique based on an optical ring laser interferometer rigidly strapped down to the Earth’s crust and operated in the Sagnac configuration. This large-scale gyroscope integrates over three hours for each data point, as opposed to an entire global network of Global Navigation Satellite Systems receivers and Very Long Baseline Interferometry that can only provide a single measurement per day.

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Fig. 1: Instrumental design and observed sensitivity of the ring laser gyroscope G.
Fig. 2: Observation of LoD signal (black) by the large ring laser gyroscope G at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell as a function of time, represented in the modified Julian date (mJD).
Fig. 3: Ring laser observations in the time and spectral domain.

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Data availability

The necessary data files and brief file descriptions, raw data files and some relevant auxiliary files are available via Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.23684520. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The analysis program was graphically coded in LabView and is a complex suite that is neither simple nor fully intuitive to run. It is available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8146323, but we recommend that users contact the corresponding author before use. The basic dataset for this publication is available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8146444.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out in the framework of the research program of the Research Group Satellite Geodesy. We acknowledge funding from the Federal Agency of Cartography and Geodesy and the Technical University of Munich. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of R. Hurst, G. Stedman and the late M. Schneider.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit Satellite Geodesy, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    K. Ulrich Schreiber, Jan Kodet & Urs Hugentobler

  2. School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    K. Ulrich Schreiber & Jon-Paul R. Wells

  3. Dodd Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, Dunedin, New Zealand

    K. Ulrich Schreiber & Jon-Paul R. Wells

  4. Geodetic Observatory Wettzell, Federal Agency of Cartography and Geodesy, Bad Kötzting, Germany

    Thomas Klügel

Authors
  1. K. Ulrich Schreiber
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  2. Jan Kodet
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  3. Urs Hugentobler
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  4. Thomas Klügel
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  5. Jon-Paul R. Wells
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Contributions

All authors contributed in a meaningful way to the development of the sensor setup over an extended period of time. K.U.S. and J.K. carried out the measurements. K.U.S. provided the analysis and wrote the manuscript. J.-P.R.W. co-wrote the manuscript. T.K. provided the tilt corrections and atmospheric attraction correction model. U.H. provided and verified the geodetic correction methods.

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Correspondence to K. Ulrich Schreiber.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information

Nature Photonics thanks Christian Bizouard, Lute Maleki and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Data 1

A ring laser shows systematic errors caused by the presence of a gain medium in the cavity. We have modelled the backscatter and null shift to remove these errors. This tab-delimited data file provides these crucial corrections at high sensor resolution (averaged over 3 h).

Supplementary Data 2

A ring laser is sensitive to changes in orientation. This tab-delimited data file provides the tilt experienced by the gyro as well as the temperature correction of the tiltmeter and atmospheric attraction on the sensor as a function of time.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

The file contains the time deviation values of the ring laser measurements in a tab-delimited text file with the geophysical signals removed, so that it shows the instrumental resolution. There are three columns in this text file, containing the length of the averaged time interval, averaged rotation rate (normalized to the rotation rate of the Earth) and the averaged rotation rate.

Source Data Fig. 2

This tab-delimited text file shows the corrected ring laser measurements in units of milliseconds as a function of time along with the length-of-day signal, derived from the C04 dataset, which has been taken from the IERS.

Source Data Fig. 3

The tab-delimited text file for Fig. 3a contains the ring-laser-measured Earth’s rotation signal along with the accumulated contribution of the modelled geophysical signals as a function of time. Columns 2 and 3 are in units of hertz. Columns 4 and 5 are in units of microhertz. A constant offset value has been subtracted from columns 4 and 5 to achieve better display of the diagram. The tab-delimited text file for Fig. 3b contains the power spectral densities of the reduced ring laser measurements and the corresponding mass transport signal.

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Schreiber, K.U., Kodet, J., Hugentobler, U. et al. Variations in the Earth’s rotation rate measured with a ring laser interferometer. Nat. Photon. 17, 1054–1058 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01286-x

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