Balancing a retroreflector to minimize rotation errors using a pendulum and quadrature interferometer.

A corner-cube retroreflector has the property that the optical path length for a reflected laser beam is insensitive to rotations about a mathematical point called its optical center (OC). This property is exploited in ballistic absolute gravity meters in which a proof mass containing a corner-cube retroreflector is dropped in a vacuum, and its position is accurately determined with a laser interferometer. In order to avoid vertical position errors when the proof mass rotates during free fall, it is important to collocate its center of mass (COM) with the OC of the retroreflector.