Atom-Interferometry Tests of the Isotropy of Post-Newtonian Gravity

2007/10/31 by Holger Müller, Holger Mueller, Sheng‐wey Chiow +4 · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #gr-qc #physics.atom-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.031101

published as Phys.Rev.Lett.100:031101,2008 · Added outlook, corrected typos; to appear in PRL. 4 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2007/12/04 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We present a test of the local Lorentz invariance of post-Newtonian gravity by monitoring Earth's gravity with a Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer that features a resolution of up to 8 x 10-9g/sqrt[Hz], the highest reported thus far. Expressed within the standard model extension (SME) or Nordtvedt's anisotropic universe model, the analysis limits four coefficients describing anisotropic gravity at the ppb level and three others, for the first time, at the 10 ppm level. Using the SME we explicitly demonstrate how the experiment actually compares the isotropy of gravity and electromagnetism.

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