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Direct Terrestrial Test of Lorentz Symmetry in Electrodynamics to 10$^{-18}$

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2015-09-15 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Instrumentation and Detectors Optics

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 Δν\Delta\nu/ν\nu to 9.2±\pm10.7×1019\times10^{-19} (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