Design and Evaluation of a Differential Accelerometer for Drop-Tower Equivalence Principle Test with Rotating Masses

A differential accelerometer comprising of two rotating masses made of the same material is proposed for drop tower-based free-fall testing of the spin–spin force between the rotating mass and the Earth. The measurement is performed by placing the two concentric masses of very different momenta in a vacuum drop capsule which is falling freely in the Earth's gravitational field. A nonzero output of the differential accelerometer is an indication of possible violation of new equivalence principle (NEP). We present the conceptual design of a modified free-fall NEP experiment which can be performed at the Beijing drop tower. Design and evaluation of the differential accelerometer with a hybrid electrostatic/magnetic suspension system are presented to accommodate for operation on ground and drop-tower tests. Details specific to the measurement uncertainty are discussed to yield an NEP test accuracy of 7.2\times10^-9.