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Schreiber et al. 2004
Schreiber, K.U., Velikoseltsev, A., Rothacher, M., Klügel, T., Stedman, G.E. and Wiltshire, D.L. (2004). Direct measurement of diurnal polar motion by ring laser gyroscopes. Journal of Geophysical Research 109: doi: 10.1029/2003JB002803. issn: 0148-0227.

We report the first direct measurements of the very small effect of forced diurnal polar motion, successfully observed on three of our large ring lasers, which now measure the instantaneous direction of Earth's rotation axis to a precision of 1 part in 108 when averaged over a time interval of several hours. Ring laser gyroscopes provide a new viable technique for directly and continuously measuring the position of the instantaneous rotation axis of the Earth and the amplitudes of the Oppolzer modes. In contrast, the space geodetic techniques (very long baseline interferometry, side looking radar, GPS, etc.) contain no information about the position of the instantaneous axis of rotation of the Earth but are sensitive to the complete transformation matrix between the Earth-fixed and inertial reference frame. Further improvements of gyroscopes will provide a powerful new tool for studying the Earth's interior.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
Geodesy and Gravity, Diurnal and subdiurnal rotational variations, Geodesy and Gravity, Instruments and techniques, Mathematical Geophysics, Modeling, diurnal polar motion, ring laser, Sagnac effect
Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/journals/jb/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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