Innovation and Progress at the Quantum Pathways Institute - A status Update

The Quantum Pathways Institute (QPI), sponsored by NASA/STMD, is a collaborative effort between UT Austin, CU Boulder, Caltech, UC Santa Barbara, and NIST. At the time of this presentation, the QPI will be at the half-way mark of a five-year program to advance to TRL-3 at the systems level the quantum sensing technology for next-generation Earth science applications. Arising from this work, we envision eventual 1 micro-Eotvos precision gravity gradient measurements in orbit, requiring femto-meter/s^2 inertial sensing. Such a gravity gradiometer system could target ice-mass loss measurements within 10 Gt/year, ocean heat uptake inference within 0.1 W/m^2, and better than 0.1 mm/year sea-level rise inference.

This paper provides a status update on our progress on two fronts. First a summary status of QPI team’s work is presented, on quantum sensing research, its conceptual development, and experimental results targeted towards a gravity gradiometer system. Second, we present progress in developing a roadmap to eventual science mission implementation, including progress in addressing some key technical spaceflight and data analysis challenges.