Solar constraints on new couplings between electromagnetism and gravity
Abstract
The unification of quantum field theory and general relativity is a fundamental goal of modern physics. In many cases, theoretical efforts to achieve this goal introduce auxiliary gravitational fields, ones in addition to the familiar symmetric second-rank tensor potential of general relativity, and lead to nonmetric theories because of direct couplings between these auxiliary fields and matter. Here, we consider an example of a metric-affine gauge theory of gravity in which torsion couples nonminimally to the electromagnetic field. This coupling causes a phase difference to accumulate between different polarization states of light as they propagate through the metric-affine gravitational field. Solar spectropolarimetric observations are reported and used to set strong constraints on the relevant coupling constant k: k^2 < (2.5 km)^2.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0402055,
title = {Solar constraints on new couplings between electromagnetism and gravity},
author = {S. K. Solanki and O. Preuss and M. P. Haugan and A. Gandorfer and H. P. Povel and P. Steiner and K. Stucki and P. N. Bernasconi and D. Soltau},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0402055},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev. D