[G02-1] Theory and methods

[G02-1-05] Properties and applications of gravity-field curvatures in geodesy

^○Pavel Novak (University of West Bohemia)

Recently reported developments in experimental physics suggest that gravity-field curvatures could become observable one day through, e.g., atom interferometers or satellite constellations. This contribution reviews basic properties of these functionals of the gravity potential (third-order directional derivatives) and discusses their possible applications in geodesy given their signal-to-noise-ratio reaches an acceptable value in order to facilitate these small values in geodetic applications. Discussed issues include spectral and stochastic properties of Earth's gravity-field curvatures given currently available geopotential models, links to other commonly used gravity-field parameters in geodesy, and applicability for local and global gravity field modelling.