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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 3: Präzisionsmessungen und Metrologie I
Q 3.1: Group Report
Monday, March 10, 2008, 14:00–14:30, 3D
A Michelson-Morley Type Test of Lorentz Invariance using electromagnetic Resonators — •Alexander Senger1, Katharina Möhle1, Moritz Nagel1, Sven Herrmann2, Evgeny Kovalchuk1, Holger Müller2, and Achim Peters1 — 1Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin — 2Physics Department, Stanford University, USA
The experiment of A. A. Michelson and E. W. Morley, has served as a sensitive test of special relativity and Lorentz invariance for more than a century now. Modern versions of this experiment rely on the comparison of electromagnetic eigenfrequencies of rotating high-finesse resonators. This approach allows to search for tiny violations of Lorentz Invariance in the optical sector of the underlying test theory (SME, Standard Model Extension), and also for deviations regarding the electronic properties of the material used to build the resonators.
We report on the progress made in our improved version of the experiment, where the measurement is performed by monitoring an optical resonator continuously rotating on a precision turntable, which currently allows for a sensitivity at the 10−17 level for a direction dependent variation of the speed of light. We discuss limiting effects in our setup and present steps towards a measurement spanning more than one year which should give an improvement of at least an order of magnitude in accuracy compared to previous tests. Furthermore, we present results from a collaboration employing two complementary experiments leading to limits on Lorentz Violation in the electronic sector of the SME.