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14 - An Update

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2011

Clifford M. Will
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
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Summary

In this chapter, we present a brief update of the past decade of testing relativity. Earlier updates to which the reader might refer include “The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment: An Update” (Will, 1984), “Experimental Gravitation from Newton's Principia to Einstein's General Relativity” (Will, 1987), “General Relativity at 75: How Right Was Einstein?” (Will, 1990a), and “The Confrontation Between General Relativity and Experiment: a 1992 Update” (Will, 1992a). For a popular review of testing general relativity, see “Was Einstein Right?” (Will, 1986).

The Einstein Equivalence Principle

(a) Tests of EEP

Several recent experiments that constitute tests of the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) were carried out primarily to search for a “fifth-force” (Section 14.5). In the “free-fall Galileo experiment” performed at the University of Colorado (Niebauer, McHugh and Faller, 1987), the relative free-fall acceleration of two bodies made of uranium and copper was measured using a laser interferometric technique. The “Eöt–Wash” experiment (Heckel et al., 1989; Adelberger, Stubbs et al., 1990) carried out at the University of Washington used a sophisticated torsion balance tray to compare the accelerations of beryllium and copper. The resulting upper limits on η[Equation (2.3)] from these and earlier tests of WEP are summarized in Figure 14.1

Dramatically improved “ mass isotropy” tests of Local Lorentz Invariance (LLI) (Section 2.4(b)) have been carried out recently using lasercooled trapped atom techniques (Prestage et al., 1985; Lamoreaux et al., 1986; Chupp et al., 1989).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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  • An Update
  • Clifford M. Will, Washington University, St Louis
  • Book: Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511564246.016
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  • An Update
  • Clifford M. Will, Washington University, St Louis
  • Book: Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511564246.016
Available formats
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  • An Update
  • Clifford M. Will, Washington University, St Louis
  • Book: Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics
  • Online publication: 04 April 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511564246.016
Available formats
×