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.
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