21 research outputs found

    Solar Neutrinos and the Principle of Equivalence

    Get PDF
    We study the proposed solution of the solar neutrino problem which requires a flavor nondiagonal coupling of neutrinos to gravity. We adopt a phenomenological point of view and investigate the consequences of the hypothesis that the neutrino weak interaction eigenstates are linear combinations of the gravitational eigenstates which have slightly different couplings to gravity, f1Gf_1G and f2Gf_2G, f1f2<<1|f_1-f_2| << 1, corresponding to a difference in red-shift between electron and muon neutrinos, Δz/(1+z)f1f2\Delta z/(1+z) \sim |f_1 - f_2|. We perform a χ2\chi^2 analysis of the latest available solar neutrino data and obtain the allowed regions in the space of the relevant parameters. The existing data rule out most of the parameter space which can be probed in solar neutrino experiments, allowing only f1f23×1014|f_1 - f_2| \sim 3 \times 10^{-14} for small values of the mixing angle (2×103sin2(2θG)1022 \times 10^{-3} \le \sin^2(2\theta_G) \le 10^{-2}) and 1016<f1f2<101510^{-16} \stackrel{<}{\sim} |f_1 - f_2| \stackrel{<}{\sim}10^{-15} for large mixing (0.6sin2(2θG)0.90.6 \le \sin^2(2\theta_G) \le 0.9). Measurements of the 8B^8{\rm B}-neutrino energy spectrum in the SNO and Super-Kamiokande experiments will provide stronger constraints independent of all considerations related to solar models. We show that these measurements will be able to exclude part of the allowed region as well as to distinguish between conventional oscillations and oscillations due to the violation of the equivalence principle.Comment: 20 pages + 4 figures, IASSNS-AST 94/5

    New Upper Limit of Terrestrial Equivalence Principle Test for Rotating Extended Bodies

    Full text link
    Improved terrestrial experiment to test the equivalence principle for rotating extended bodies is presented, and a new upper limit for the violation of the equivalence principle is obtained at the level of 1.610-7% \times 10^{\text{-7}}, which is limited by the friction of the rotating gyroscope. It means the spin-gravity interaction between the extended bodies has not been observed at this level.Comment: 4 page

    Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System

    Full text link
    Recent years have seen increasing efforts to directly measure some aspects of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic interaction in several astronomical scenarios in the solar system. After briefly overviewing the concept of gravitomagnetism from a theoretical point of view, we review the performed or proposed attempts to detect the Lense-Thirring effect affecting the orbital motions of natural and artificial bodies in the gravitational fields of the Sun, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. In particular, we will focus on the evaluation of the impact of several sources of systematic uncertainties of dynamical origin to realistically elucidate the present and future perspectives in directly measuring such an elusive relativistic effect.Comment: LaTex, 51 pages, 14 figures, 22 tables. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Science (ApSS). Some uncited references in the text now correctly quoted. One reference added. A footnote adde

    All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

    Get PDF
    We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society

    All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

    Get PDF
    We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society
    corecore