Direct Terrestrial Test of Lorentz Symmetry in Electrodynamics to 10$^{-18}$
Abstract
Lorentz symmetry is a foundational property of modern physics, underlying the standard model of particles and general relativity. It is anticipated that these two theories are low energy approximations of a single theory that is unified and consistent at the Planck scale. Many unifying proposals allow Lorentz symmetry to be broken, with observable effects appearing at Planck-suppressed levels; thus precision tests of Lorentz invariance are needed to assess and guide theoretical efforts. Here, we use ultra-stable oscillator frequency sources to perform a modern Michelson-Morley experiment and make the most precise direct terrestrial test to date of Lorentz symmetry for the photon, constraining Lorentz violating orientation-dependent relative frequency changes / to 9.210.7 (95 confidence interval). This order of magnitude improvement over previous Michelson-Morley experiments allows us to set comprehensive simultaneous bounds on nine boost and rotation anisotropies of the speed of light, finding no significant violations of Lorentz symmetry.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1412.6954,
title = {Direct Terrestrial Test of Lorentz Symmetry in Electrodynamics to 10$^{-18}$},
author = {M. Nagel and S. R. Parker and E. V. Kovalchuk and P. L. Stanwix and J. G. Hartnett and E. N. Ivanov and A. Peters and M. E. Tobar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.6954},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
20 pages, 13 figures