It’s a naval chart that would not require surfacing.
A French postdoc in my lab swore this was the moneymaker for our entire subfield, and it seems he was on to something …
It’s a naval chart that would not require surfacing.
A French postdoc in my lab swore this was the moneymaker for our entire subfield, and it seems he was on to something …
> one of the primary reasons subs need to surface , in order to GPS lock
While getting a GPS position is helpful, the primary reason a submarine goes to periscope depth regularly is for communications. The Navy needs to send information to submarines and know that they'll get it and take action within a certain timeframe. That's by far the primary driver.
They do have measures of "nuclear fuel" remaining, but it lasts about 30 years (at least in the American boats) so generally doesn't impact day-to-day considerations.
1) Attack Submarines (e.g. Los Angeles-class & Virginia-class for USN) which usually roam within a designated operations area, surveilling, tracking, and generally keeping tabs on other nations' surface & sub-surface fleet dispositions. These subs typically have multi-week sorties and may intermittently surface for surveillance & comms.
2) Ballistic Missile Submarines aka "Boomers" (e.g. Ohio-class for USN) which are given a strategic area in which to operate and their objective is to remain silent & undetected, waiting for the hopefully-never-coming order to launch their SLBMs. These subs usually have multi-month sorties and often don't surface until the end of their patrol.
I have often wondered how close to the surface they need to get.
I would presume retractable antennas could be extended from a sub from a non-trivial depth. Or cable attached to buoys Or something much smarter that I have not thought about yet.
https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/the-many-methods-of-communic...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=en-qekZX4ws
But I believe that's only good down to ~60 ft. Anything deeper requires the really long land-based ELF arrays.
Los Angeles and Virginia-class submarines are always doing something: doing exercises, transiting from one location to another, etc. And typically multiple things at once. While the boat is transiting from an exercise area to homeport, the team is doing engineering drills, or other kinds of training. Or the forward part of the boat is doing exercises with a carrier battle group while the engineering team is doing engineering drills. (There's ALWAYS engineering drills or maintenance happening.)
Fuel isn't a primary concern: a nuclear reactor is fueled for the life of the boat, so 30-ish years. That said, effective life of a reactor is something the Navy tracks closely, and depending on the life of the boat, the life left in the reactor, some boats are decommissioned as they get close to the end of their fuel life, and others get re-fueled. (And in the case of the USS San Francisco, who had recently been refueled before it hit an underwater mountain, they cut off the front half of the submarine and welded the front half of a recently-decommissioned submarine on, because the reactor and fuel was too valuable to go to waste)
But there are VLF antennas that Ohio-class submarines have to receive low-data-rate comms while submerged.
Any reasonable communications have to be made while at periscope depth. (Which is subtly different than "having to surface"... at PD just the thin mast is out of the water.)
The shaft and screw are confined to the end of the sub. A navigation instrument like this would not be in the engineroom.
I am reminded of this:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/05/microwave-ov...
Towed sensors and multiple passes over known calibration zones?
Doesn't that mean that the gravitational field is an information storage and transmission medium; a signal channel?
Is it lossy?
Is there a routable signal path to block harassing calls?
Is it slower or cheaper than nonlocal entanglement; like quantum radar?
What is the minimum energy necessary to cause a propagating thresholdable-as-binary pertubation of a gravitational field?
Is there something that's low-enough power to not EM-burn a brainstem in a crytographically-keyed medical device with key revocation?
Does a fishing lure bobber on the water produce gravitational waves as part of the n-body gravitational wave fluid field, and how separable are the source wave components with e.g. Quantum Fourier Transform/or and other methods?
Butterfly effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
Chaos theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
Quantum chaos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chaos
Superfluid Quantum Gravity:
Backscatter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ant...
> LISA would be the first dedicated space-based gravitational-wave observatory. It aims to measure gravitational waves directly by using laser interferometry. The LISA concept has a constellation of three spacecraft arranged in an equilateral triangle with sides 2.5 million kilometres long, flying along an Earth-like heliocentric orbit. The distance between the satellites is precisely monitored to detect a passing gravitational wave.[2]
It also says the ESA LISA projected launch date is in year 2037.
Could 3 or 4 cubesats per cluster solve for space-based gravitational wave observation?
CubeSat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSat
Li-Fi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-Fi
Could the gravitational wave sensors be mounted on Starlink or OneWeb ULEO Ultra Low Earth Orbit satellites with a 5 year lifecycle? (Also, how sealed and shielded do consumer radio telescopes like Unistellar's eVscope and eQuinox need to be to last a few years in microgravity? Maybe mando blackout noise.)
What is SOTA State of the Art in is it "matter-wave interferometry"?
/? matter-wave interferometry wikipedia: https://www.google.com/search?q=matter-wave+interferometry+w...
/? matter-wave interferometry: https://www.google.com/search?q=matter-wave+interferometry
Can low-cost lasers and Rdyberg atoms e.g. Rydberg Technology solve for [space-based] matter-wave interferometry?
/? from:me LIGO https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3A%40westurner%20ligo :
- "Massive Black Holes Shown to Act Like Quantum Particles" (2022) https://www.quantamagazine.org/massive-black-holes-shown-to-... :
> Physicists are using quantum math to understand what happens when black holes collide. In a surprise, they’ve shown that a single particle can describe a collision’s entire gravitational wave.
- GitHub topic: gravitational-waves: https://github.com/topics/gravitational-waves
In robotics parlance, this is the difference between dead reckoning versus SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping).
Wenn you know you were at location X 10 minutes ago and now one sensor tells you you are at Y ... You can reasonably assume that that sensor is wrong.
Huge game changer if true.
Other sources say this is about inertial navigation, not based on charts.
"Accelerometers measure how an object’s velocity changes over time. With this, and the starting point of the object, the new position can be calculated."
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/188973/quantum-compass-could...
I think with any INS system, if you want to be very accurate you need charts of gravitational anomalies. So these seem like one and the same to me.
Same as if you were navigating based on a physical contour map of the ocean floor, except that getting an accurate depth like that in deep waters isn’t possible, and in shallow waters requires sonar.
Large low-shear-velocity provinces, for anyone else wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_low-shear-velocity_provi...
Do we somehow already have that super-accurate "map of g"? Wouldn't one already have to exist to be able to use quantum navigation? Moreover, would it not also require integration with a gyro and a lot of history to be able to know, for instance, which place it's at of many in any given ocean where g = 9.8100023?
Does g really vary that much that you can figure out where you are with it with sufficient accuracy to do military stuff?
I am a ham radio operator and was thinking about novel forms of signal propagation.
I landed on the idea of gravitons. Could gravitonic signal propagation be done somehow? While researching, I keep coming across familiar terms I know from radio land.
Just curious if the fields here could be harnessed for communication. Thanks.
Not quite possible today, though, as others have pointed out
It's conceptually similar, but they didn't use quantum gravity mapping in the 50s.
Huh? Wouldn't it be enough to send some small thing connected by thin wires or wirelessly to the submarine (lasers, ultrasound, whatever) that could aquire location and communicate it? Given military budgets it could probably even be disposable.
Leaving beacons in areas of interest also seems like a good idea. With good encryption their signal could be indistinguishable from noise happening around it.
Additionally if they communicate through radio, you're back to the same problem because it's the thousand feet of water that blocks most radio waves. If they communicate via ultrasound you've just tied your sub to a nearby active sonar source. If they communicate via laser you have to be very close otherwise the power of the laser creates sonar detectable variations in the water near the sub.
They do, using either tethered buoys or 'buoyant cable antennas' (the cable is the antenna and is itself buoyant) They can use these without coming to periscope depth, or even slowing down.
They use audio for short-range underwater communication, but this has side effect of giving away position.
US also built giant ELF (extra low frequency) transmitter to send orders to subs which operated till 2004.
Fun fact: subs have all necessary codes to launch nuclear strike on board since there is no way to transmit these code to them if they are submerged.
it would seem the Total Perspective Vortex has obvious military applications
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Total%20Pers...
Sensitive enough to, say, detect the movement of something moving at a known frequency on the other side of the planet?
Are we on the edge of gravitation based communication channels?
Depends on you application, but if you only send some bits of information ("stocks just crashed") having a big thumper with a very known impact profile is sufficient.
Sensitive detectors can measure differences in hundreds of millionths (10^-8 parts) or around .1 um/s^2.
A 1 million tonne mass on the other side of the earth will create a TOTAL acceleration of 4*10^-16. Changes in that will not be detectable.
The more mass necessary, the more energy you'll need to send messages.
Unless the detection is extremely accurate, you would be better off spending that energy in electromagnetic radiation that bounces off the atmosphere.
https://physicsworld.com/a/neutrino-based-communication-is-a...
Gravity cares about distance and mass, and as large parts of the planet move their density distribution shifts affecting both of those factors
I love how the IQ of this place keeps spiraling downward.
Why do you think the concentration of iron in magma would not be evenly distributed throughout the mantle?
I'm trying to understand why you think "closeness to space" would be a factor. Maybe you are thinking that the seabed is going to be further from a detector than the terrain would be?
It is true that the further from the Earth the detector is, the smaller the anomaly will be.
Note that even hills are large enough to deflect the gravitational vector at the surface: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_deflection
Or is the drift is so minor that this quantum navigation system can operate for up to 6 months without sufficient core drift alignment calculation?
"n condensed matter physics, a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that is typically formed when a gas of bosons at very low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C or −459.67 °F)..."
I guess, a special device is needed. The size of such device will be in thousands of mobile phones just in volume needed.
Yet, it is feasible. ;)
this is a but solly, like saying you will eventually have a fridge the size if a m9bile phone - us it usefull?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boson
"multiple identical composite bosons (in this context sometimes known as 'bose particles') behave at high densities or low temperatures in a characteristic manner described by Bose–Einstein statistics: for example a gas of helium-4 atoms becomes a superfluid at temperatures close to absolute zero."
Helium leaks as nothing else, even more than hydrogen.
Here's some leak rates of heilum: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-the-helium...
Let's say we have a um^3 of helium in the device proposed. Let's assume leak rate of 8*10^-9 of cm^3/sec. (1e-6/1e-2)^3/(8e-9) is equal to 1.2499999999999998e-4 - all helium will leak in 1/8 of microsecond in the device proposed.
I hope this helps.
https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/beacons/nanoquantum/wee-gglas...
One important distinction is between measuring gravity (generally, acceleration in the vertical direction) and the gravity gradient. The latter is generally easier and more useful for navigation.
I believe in the book version of the Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy, they mention that the Soviets did something similar but using a magnetometer.
Super cool to see the newest versions of this are going from sci-fi to fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_navigation
"On the surface or at periscope depth, submarines have used these methods to fix their position"...GPS being one of them.
A submarine can also navigate by the stars without surfacing.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/october/navi...
"This is precisely the information required by the traditional method of celestial navigation, and it is accomplished without the need to surface or use a sextant!"
Also, look up the HN guidelines on debating your downvotes.
Welcome to HN!
We need accurate maps of the geoid for a lot of different reasons. (Military as well as civilian. Potential fields geophysics is super useful for all kinds of different geologic use cases, and regardless, if you want to target an ICBM, you need an accurate geoid.)
However, a super precise gravimeter doesn't help much. We have more precision than we can use already. Rather ancient spring-based instruments from 100 years ago can actually still give more precision than we can use in many cases. Modern ship-borne gravity instruments work on different principles, but the signal is very noisy for the same external reasons.
The biggest issue is that you also need to know absolute elevation very precisely to use the measurement of g that you get. A few millimeters of error in elevation significantly changes the anomaly measurement you make. Sure, submarines can get accurate hydrostatic measurements of depth, but those assume a lot of things and critically aren't absolute. The ocean has currents - that's another way of saying that the surface of the ocean isn't "sea level". Those vary through time and would require satellite information to correct for. However, once you get down in the weeds, it gets tougher still.
Remember that we're dealing with an inverse square distance relationship. Things close by matter quite a lot.
People nearby standing in different positions? That actually does affect things. Easy enough to mount the instrument away from people, though. Different distributions of mass in the submarine? Also affects the measurement. You can correct for all of these in various ways, though, so long as you have information on it. It's just more complexity and another source of noise.
In the end, the "free air anomaly" measurement you'd be correcting things to is an bathymetry map, to the first order. If there's a landslide, that affects things quite a bit, and those happen all the time.
Finally, you'd be matching a "fingerprint" time series measurement as you travel to a pre made map. That's a non unique relationship. You'd have heading/etc information to help the non uniqueness part significantly, but when things don't vary much (i.e flat topography and not a ton varying geologically), you don't have much of a unique signal to match to.
At any rate, it's a very useful tool for many other things, but I'm skeptical it could be turned into a precise navigational aid. In combination with traditional gyroscopic/etc measurements of heading and distance, it could help constrain uncertainty, but it's not an independent measurement and it's relatively noisy.
Now that I think about it, though, a fully passive "seamount proximity sensor" is rather useful, and that's something you'd get even with a noisy signal...
I don't think so. What you are saying is true if for some reason you want to work with absolute values, but nobody would do that. You measure many data points as your submarine flies over the landscape for a time, and then you match the measured curve with predicted curves from bathymetric maps. This is an optimisation problem where you try to find the best match. Precise elevation is an output from this process not an input requirement.
> but when things don't vary much (i.e flat topography and not a ton varying geologically), you don't have much of a unique signal to match to
100%. This is also true for cruise missiles which fly by TERCOM[1]. And there is an interesting consequence to it. Submarines and cruise missiles don't just bumble around randomly. The navigators also know this limitation so they set trajectories which plays to their strength. In the case of the cruise missile planners they have tools to evaluate the navigational quality of a terrain contour matching algorithm over a proposed trajectory with Monte Carlo methods. Probably submariners have the same.
This means in practice you can know that the submarines are more likely to take certain routes. They will prefer approaching from hilly terrain over flat, but also over extended flat areas they will prefer to overfly butes to regain navigational accuracy. This of course won't tell you precisely where the submarine is, but can help an adversary more economically allocate their ASW assets.
> At any rate, it's a very useful tool for many other things, but I'm skeptical it could be turned into a precise navigational aid
Yeah. I mean I heard that people proposed to make measurements of stars to find your location. The fools. Haven't they heard of clouds? Sometimes you can't see as far as your own nose for days.
Every navigational system ever devised have limitations and peculiarities. If you are comparing gravitational tercom with the ease and quality and simplicity of GPS then of course it will look crude and cumbersome. But of course GPS adds other complications and dangers to the life of a submariner. Used well, and in the right circumstances it can be potentially very valuable technique.
The variations due to changes in elevation are orders of magnitude larger than the variations you're relying on using for navigation. Distance from the center of the Earth is the primary signal you're measuring, for better or worse. It's not just relative vs absolute. You can probably assume the sub isn't changing depth rapidly and ocean currents are long wavelength, which would allow relative measurements to be somewhat feasible.
However, nothing about this requires a new quantum sensor. Ship-borne gravity anomaly measurements have been around for half a century. The previous methods are more than precise enough. In fact, they were done on submarines first before ships - it's easier to measure without waves.
What's triggering this now? Something doesn't add up... If it were purely based on using gravity anomaly along track measurements as a "fingerprint", it wouldn't need a new sensor. There's likely another mechanism they're using or they're using it for other reasons in addition to navigation.
Sure. The news can be many thing. Maybe they got a marginally better gyroscope. Maybe it is not better in terms of better error characteristic, but cheaper, or smaller, or lower maintenance.
Or maybe they got a new software package which brings them benefits, but the way they could sell it to the leaders is by telling them that the sensor they are using is "quantum".
Or maybe none of the above and they are just trying to fake out an adversary to trigger a costly mistake.
If you throw a baseball in an accelerating enormous elevator in a vacuum, the baseball will follow a parabolic arc.
If you throw a baseball on the vacuum surface of a planet, it will almost (but not quite) follow a parabolic arc. The force of gravity is lower at the peak, unlike in the elevator where acceleration is constant everywhere in the elevator.
Therefore, you can distinguish gravity from acceleration