Gravity Couplings in the Standard-Model Extension

The Standard-Model Extension (SME) is an action-based expansion describing general Lorentz violation for known matter and fields, including gravity. In this talk, I will discuss the Lorentz-violating gravity couplings in the SME. Toy models that match the SME expansion, including vector and two-tensor models, are reviewed. Finally I discuss the status of experiments and observations probing gravity coefficients for Lorentz violation.Comment: 5 pages, Presented at the Fifth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, June 28-July 2, 201

Lorentz Violation and Gravity

In the last decade, a variety of high-precision experiments have searched for miniscule violations of Lorentz symmetry. These searches are largely motivated by the possibility of uncovering experimental signatures from a fundamental unified theory. Experimental results are reported in the framework called the Standard-Model Extension (SME), which describes general Lorentz violation for each particle species in terms of its coefficients for Lorentz violation. Recently, the role of gravitational experiments in probing the SME has been explored in the literature. In this talk, I will summarize theoretical and experimental aspects of these works. I will also discuss recent lunar laser ranging and atom interferometer experiments, which place stringent constraints on gravity coefficients for Lorentz violation.Comment: 5 pages, presented at the IAU Symposium No. 261: Relativity in Fundamental Astronomy, Virginia Beach, VA, May 200

Testing Lorentz Symmetry with Gravity

In this talk, results from the gravitational sector of the Standard-Model Extension (SME) are discussed. The weak-field phenomenology of the resulting modified gravitational field equations is explored. The application of the results to a variety of modern gravity experiments, including lunar laser ranging, Gravity Probe B, binary pulsars, and Earth-laboratory tests, shows promising sensitivity to gravitational coefficients for Lorentz violation in the SME.Comment: 7 pages, presented at the Fourth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, August 200

Lorentz-Violating Electromagnetostatics

In this talk, the stationary limit of Lorentz-violating electrodynamics is discussed. As illustrated by some simple examples, the general solution includes unconventional mixing of electrostatic and magnetostatic effects. I discuss a high-sensitivity null-type measurement, exploiting Lorentz-violating electromagnetostatic effects, that could improve existing limits on parity-odd coefficients for Lorentz violation in the photon sector.Comment: 6 pages, presented at the Third Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, August 200

Lorentz-violating gravitoelectromagnetism

The well-known analogy between a special limit of General Relativity and electromagnetism is explored in the context of the Lorentz-violating Standard-Model Extension (SME). An analogy is developed for the minimal SME that connects a limit of the CPT-even component of the electromagnetic sector to the gravitational sector. We show that components of the post-newtonian metric can be directly obtained from solutions to the electromagnetic sector. The method is illustrated with specific examples including static and rotating sources. Some unconventional effects that arise for Lorentz-violating electrostatics and magnetostatics have an analog in Lorentz-violating post-newtonian gravity. In particular, we show that even for static sources, gravitomagnetic fields arise in the presence of Lorentz violation.Comment: 11 pages, 2 color figures, version accepted in Physical Review

Anisotropic cubic curvature couplings

To complement recent work on tests of spacetime symmetry in gravity, cubic curvature couplings are studied using an effective field theory description of spacetime-symmetry breaking. The associated mass dimension 8 coefficients for Lorentz violation studied do not result in any linearized gravity modifications and instead are revealed in the first nonlinear terms in an expansion of spacetime around a flat background. We consider effects on gravitational radiation through the energy loss of a binary system and we study two-body orbital perturbations using the post-Newtonian metric. Some effects depend on the internal structure of the source and test bodies, thereby breaking the Weak Equivalence Principle for self-gravitating bodies. These coefficients can be measured in solar-system tests, while binary-pulsar systems and short-range gravity tests are particularly sensitive.Comment: 11 page

Local Lorentz-Symmetry Breaking and Gravity

The lagrangian-based Standard-Model Extension framework offers a broad description of possible gravitational effects from local Lorentz violation. In this talk, I review the status of the theoretical and phenomenological work in this area. The extension of previous results in linearized gravity to the nonlinear regime is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, presented at the Sixth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, June 17-21, 201

Velocity-dependent inverse cubic force and solar system gravity tests

Higher mass dimension terms in an effective field theory framework for tests of spacetime symmetries are studied. Using a post-Newtonian expansion method, we derive the spacetime metric and the equations of motion for a binary system. This reveals an inverse cubic force correction to General Relativity that depends on the velocity of the bodies in the system. The results are studied in the context of laboratory and space-based tests including the effects on solar-system ephemeris, laser ranging observations, and gravimeter tests. This work reveals the coefficient combinations for mass dimension 5 operators controlling CPT violation for gravity that can be measured using analysis from these tests. Other tests including light propagation can be used to probe these coefficients. Sensitivity estimates are provided and the results are contrasted with the minimal mass dimension 4 terms in the gravity sector.Comment: 10 pages, matches published versio

Testing the Gravitational Weak Equivalence Principle in the Standard-Model Extension with Binary Pulsars

The Standard-Model Extension provides a framework to systematically investigate possible violation of the Lorentz symmetry. Concerning gravity, the linearized version was extensively examined. We here cast the first set of experimental bounds on the nonlinear terms in the field equation from the anisotropic cubic curvature couplings. These terms introduce body-dependent accelerations for self-gravitating objects, thus violating the gravitational weak equivalence principle (GWEP). Novel phenomena, that are absent in the linearized gravity, remain experimentally unexplored. We constrain them with precise binary-orbit measurements from pulsar timing, wherein the high density and large compactness of neutron stars are crucial for the test. It is the first study that seeks GWEP-violating signals in a fully anisotropic framework with Lorentz violation.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; accepted by PR

Relating Noncommutative SO(2,3) Gravity to the Lorentz-Violating Standard-Model Extension

We consider a model of noncommutative gravity that is based on a spacetime with broken local SO(2,3) symmetry. We show that the torsion-free version of this model is contained within the framework of the Lorentz-violating Standard-Model Extension. We analyze in detail the relation between the torsion-free, quadratic limits of the broken SO(2,3) model and the Standard-Model Extension. As part of the analysis,we construct the relevant geometric quantities to quadratic order in the metric perturbation around a flat background.Comment: 10 pages, accepted in Symmetr