Published July 1, 2009 | Version v1
Journal article

Atom interferometry tests of local Lorentz invariance in gravity and electrodynamics

  • 1. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
  • 2. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
  • 3. ZARM - University of Bremen Am Fallturm/Hochschulring, 28359 Bremen (Germany)
  • 4. Physics Department, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)
  • 5. Physics Department, National University of Singapore, 2 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117542 (Singapore)

Description

We present atom-interferometer tests of the local Lorentz invariance of post-Newtonian gravity. An experiment probing for anomalous vertical gravity on Earth, which has already been performed, uses the highest-resolution atomic gravimeter so far. The influence of Lorentz violation in electrodynamics is also taken into account, resulting in combined bounds on Lorentz violation in gravity and electrodynamics. Expressed within the standard model extension or Nordtvedt's anisotropic universe model, we limit 12 linear combinations of seven coefficients for Lorentz violation at the part per billion level, from which we derive limits on six coefficients (and seven when taking into account additional data from lunar laser ranging). We also discuss the use of horizontal interferometers, including atom-chip or guided-atom devices, which potentially allow the use of longer coherence times in order to achieve higher sensitivity.

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
Journal Volume
80
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
p. 016002-016002.12
ISSN
0556-2821
CODEN
PRVDAQ

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2009 The American Physical Society