2016/01/14 by Adrian C. Melissinos, Melissinos, Adrian C.
Physics and Astronomy · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1601.03950
Current limits on violation of local Lorentz invariance in the photon sector\nare derived mainly from experiments that search for a spatial anisotropy in the\nspeed of light. The presently operating gravitational wave detectors are\nMichelson interferometers with long effective arms, 4e5 m, and sensitive to a\nfringe shift 2e-9. Therefore they can be used to test for a difference in the\nspeed of light in the two arms, as modulated bi-annualy by the orientation of\nthe Earth's velocity with respect to the direction of motion of the local\nsystem. A limit can be set on the Robertson-Mansouri-Sexl parameter PMM <\n10e-15, as compared to its present limit of PMM < 2e-10, an improvement of five\norders of magnitude.\n