Analysis of Sun/Moon Gravitational Redshift tests with the STE-QUEST Space Mission

Abstract

The STE-QUEST space mission will perform tests of the gravitational redshift in the field of the Sun and the Moon to high precision by frequency comparisons of clocks attached to the ground and separated by intercontinental distances. In the absence of Einstein equivalence principle (EP) violation, the redshift is zero up to small tidal corrections as the Earth is freely falling in the field of the Sun and Moon. Such tests are thus null tests, allowing to bound possible violations of the EP. Here we analyze the Sun/Moon redshift tests using a generic EP violating theoretical framework, with clocks minimally modelled as two-level atoms. We present a complete derivation of the redshift (including both GR and non-GR terms) in a realistic experiment such as the one envisaged for STE-QUEST. We point out and correct an error in previous formalisms linked to the atom's recoil not being properly taken into account.

17 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Signals for Lorentz Violation in Post-Newtonian Gravity
• Matter-gravity couplings and Lorentz violation
• Equivalence Principle Violations and Couplings of a Light Dilaton
• Quantum Tests of the Einstein Equivalence Principle with the STE-QUEST Space Mission

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• Development of a strontium optical lattice clock for the SOC mission on the ISS
• Testing the Einstein Equivalence Principle with two Earth-orbiting clocks
• Relativistic tidal effects on clock-comparison experiments
• Preliminary Sensitivity Study for a Gravitational Redshift Measurement with China's Lunar Exploration Project
• Testing the gravitational redshift with an inner Solar System probe: the VERITAS case
• Atom interferometer as a freely falling clock for time-dilation measurements