General relativity is founded on the experimental fact that in a gravitational field all bodies fall with the same acceleration regardless of their mass and composition. This is the weak equivalence principle, or universality of free fall. Experimental evidence of a violation would require either that general relativity is is to be amended or that another force of nature is at play. In 1916 Einstein brought as evidence the torsion balance experiments by Eotvos, to 10???8???10???9. In the 1960s and early 70s, by exploiting the ???passive??? daily rotation of the Earth, torsion balance tests improved to 10???11 and 10???12. More recently, active rotation of the balance at higher frequencies has reached 10???13. No other experimental tests of general relativity are both so crucial for the theory and so precise and accurate. If a similar differential experiment is performed inside a spacecraft passively stabilised by 1Hz rotation while orbiting the Earth at 600km altitude the test would improve by 4 orders of magnitude, to 10???17, thus probing a totally unexplored field of physics. This is unique to weakly coupled concentric macroscopic test cylinders inside a rapidly rotating spacecraft.
Testing the weak equivalence principle with macroscopic proof masses on ground and in space: A brief review
NOBILI, ANNA MARIA
2014-01-01
Abstract
General relativity is founded on the experimental fact that in a gravitational field all bodies fall with the same acceleration regardless of their mass and composition. This is the weak equivalence principle, or universality of free fall. Experimental evidence of a violation would require either that general relativity is is to be amended or that another force of nature is at play. In 1916 Einstein brought as evidence the torsion balance experiments by Eotvos, to 10???8???10???9. In the 1960s and early 70s, by exploiting the ???passive??? daily rotation of the Earth, torsion balance tests improved to 10???11 and 10???12. More recently, active rotation of the balance at higher frequencies has reached 10???13. No other experimental tests of general relativity are both so crucial for the theory and so precise and accurate. If a similar differential experiment is performed inside a spacecraft passively stabilised by 1Hz rotation while orbiting the Earth at 600km altitude the test would improve by 4 orders of magnitude, to 10???17, thus probing a totally unexplored field of physics. This is unique to weakly coupled concentric macroscopic test cylinders inside a rapidly rotating spacecraft.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
