2002/08/31 by J. W. Moffat, G. T. Gillies · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/4/1/392
published as NewJ.Phys.4:92,2002 · 9 pages. Latex file. No figures. Additional comments about the proposed experiment
arxiv created 2002/10/28 · openalex publication_date 2002/11/14 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
An Eötvös experiment to test the weak equivalence principle (WEP) for zero-point vacuum energy is proposed using a satellite. Following the suggestion of Ross for a terrestrial experiment of this type, the acceleration of a spherical test mass of aluminium would be compared with that of a similar test mass made from another material. The estimated ratio of the zero-point vacuum energy density inside the aluminium sphere to the rest mass energy density is ~1.6 × 10 -14 , which would allow a 1% resolution of a potential WEP violation observed in a satellite mission test that had a baseline sensitivity to WEP violations of ~10 -16 . An observed violation of the WEP for vacuum energy density would constitute a significant clue as to the origin of the cosmological constant and the source of dark energy, and test a recently proposed resolution of the cosmological constant problem, based on a model of nonlocal quantum gravity and quantum field theory.