25 research outputs found
On Possible Measurement of Gravitational Interaction Parameters on Board a Satellite
The recently suggested SEE (Satellite Energy Exchange) method of measuring
the gravitational constant , possible equivalence principle violation
(measured by the E\"{o}tv\"{o}s parameter ) and the hypothetic 5th force
parameters and on board a drag-free Earth's satellite is
discussed and further developed. Various particle trajectories near a heavy
ball are numerically simulated. Some basic sources of error are analysed. The
measurement procedure is modelled by noise insertion to a ``true''
trajectory. It is concluded that the present knowledge of (for
m) and can be improved by at least two orders of
magnitude.Comment: (only two misprints on title page) 7 page
Constraints from orbital motions around the Earth of the environmental fifth-force hypothesis for the OPERA superluminal neutrino phenomenology
It has been recently suggested by Dvali and Vikman that the superluminal
neutrino phenomenology of the OPERA experiment may be due to an environmental
feature of the Earth, naturally yielding a long-range fifth force of
gravitational origin whose coupling with the neutrino is set by the scale M_*,
in units of reduced Planck mass. Its characteristic length lambda should not be
smaller than one Earth's radius R_e, while its upper bound is expected to be
slightly smaller than the Earth-Moon distance (60 R_e). We analytically work
out some orbital effects of a Yukawa-type fifth force for a test particle
moving in the modified field of a central body. Our results are quite general
since they are not restricted to any particular size of lambda; moreover, they
are valid for an arbitrary orbital configuration of the particle, i.e. for any
value of its eccentricity . We find that the dimensionless strength coupling
parameter alpha is constrained to |alpha| <= 1 10^-10-4 10^-9 for 1 R_e <=
lambda <= 10 R_e by the laser data of the Earth's artificial satellite LAGEOS
II, corresponding to M_* >= 4 10^9 -1.6 10^10. The Moon perigee allows to
obtain |alpha| <= 3 10^-11 for the Earth-Moon pair in the range 15 R_e <=
lambda = 3 10^10 - 4.5 10^10. Our results
are neither necessarily limited to the superluminal OPERA scenario nor to the
Dvali-Vikman model, in which it is M_* = 10^-6 at lambda = 1 R_e, in contrast
with our bounds: they generally extend to any theoretical scenario implying a
fifth-force of Yukawa-type.Comment: LaTex2e, 18 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, 81 reference
Gravitational wave detection using electromagnetic modes in a resonance cavity
We present a proposal for a gravitational wave detector, based on the
excitation of an electromagnetic mode in a resonance cavity. The mode is
excited due to the interaction between a large amplitude electromagnetic mode
and a quasi-monochromatic gravitational wave. The minimum metric perturbation
needed for detection is estimated to the order 7.10^(-23) using current data on
superconducting niobium cavities. Using this value together with different
standard models predicting the occurrence of merging neutron star or black hole
binaries, the corresponding detection rate is estimated to 1-20 events per
year, with a `table top' cavity of a few meters length.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, references adde
Possible variations of the fine structure constant and their metrological significance
We briefly review the recent experimental results on possible variations of
the fine structure constant on the cosmological time scale and its
position dependence. We outline the theoretical grounds for the assumption that
might be variable, mention some phenomenological models incorporating
a variable into the context of modern cosmology and discuss the
significance of possible variations for theoretical and practical
metrology.Comment: Latex, 17 pages, brief review. References updated, minor errors
remove