English

Atom Interferometry tests of the isotropy of post-Newtonian gravity

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2008-11-26 v2 Atomic Physics

Abstract

We present a test of the local Lorentz invariance of post-Newtonian gravity by monitoring Earth's gravity with a Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer that features a resolution of about 8*10^(-9)g/Hz^(1/2), the highest reported thus far. Expressed within the standard model extension (SME) or Nordtvedt's anisotropic universe model, the analysis limits four coefficients describing anisotropic gravity at the ppb level and three others, for the first time, at the 10ppm level. Using the SME we explicitly demonstrate how the experiment actually compares the isotropy of gravity and electromagnetism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0710.3768,
  title  = {Atom Interferometry tests of the isotropy of post-Newtonian gravity},
  author = {Holger Mueller and Sheng-wey Chiow and Sven Herrmann and Steven Chu and Keng-Yeow Chung},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.3768},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

Added outlook, corrected typos; to appear in PRL. 4 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:34:06.722Z