Sagnac Effect, Ring Lasers and Terrestrial Tests of Gravity
arXiv:1505.01268 · doi:10.3390/galaxies3020084
Abstract
Light can be used as a probe to explore the structure of space-time: this is usual in astrophysical and cosmological tests, however it has been recently suggested that this can be done also in terrestrial laboratories. Namely, the GINGER project aims at measuring post-Newtonian effects, such as the gravito-magnetic ones, in an Earth based laboratory, by means of a ring lasers array. Here, we first review the theoretical foundations of the Sagnac Effect, on which ring lasers are based, and then we study the Sagnac Effect in a terrestrial laboratory, emphasizing the origin of the gravitational contributions that GINGER aims at measuring. Moreover, we show that accurate measurements allow to set constraints on theories of gravity different from General Relativity. Eventually, we describe the experimental setup of GINGER.
24 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in Galaxies, Special Issue "Advances in Gravitational Research"
References in corpus (12)
- The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
- Gravity Probe B: Final Results of a Space Experiment to Test General Relativity
- Signals for Lorentz Violation in Post-Newtonian Gravity
- Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System
- Testing General Relativity and gravitational physics using the LARES satellite
- Probing Models of Extended Gravity using Gravity Probe B and LARES experiments
- Evidence of the gravitomagnetic field of Mars
- Orbital effects of Lorentz-violating Standard Model Extension gravitomagnetism around a static body: a sensitivity analysis
- A ring-lasers array for fundamental physics
- Synchronization Gauges and the Principles of Special Relativity
- Constraints on Covariant Horava-Lifshitz Gravity from frame-dragging experiment
- A Note on the Sagnac Effect for Matter Beams