Uncertainty due to parasitic accelerations in absolute gravimetry

Absolute gravity measurements are based on the reconstruction of the free-falling motion of a test body in vacuum. In this paper, two large disturbing effects are studied, namely the non-gravitational accelerations originated by rotation and translation of the flying body. Their contribution to the uncertainty of the free-fall acceleration is evaluated using the Monte Carlo method as proposed in Supplement 1 to the GUM. The analysis is specifically applied to the IMGC-02 absolute gravimeter, but can be easily extended to other instruments, including cold-atom gravimeters currently under development.