Matter waves and clocks do not observe uniform gravitational fields

Abstract

In a uniform gravitational field, classical test objects fall universally. Any reference object or observer will fall in the same universal manner. Therefore, a uniform gravitational field cannot create dynamics between observers and classical test objects. The influence of a uniform gravitational field on matter waves and clocks, however, is described inconsistently throughout research and education. To illustrate, we discuss the behavior of a matter-wave interferometer and a clock redshift experiment in a uniform gravitational field. As a consistent formulation of the equivalence principle implies, a uniform gravitational field has no observable influence on these systems and is physically equivalent to the absence of gravity.

12 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Test of the Equivalence Principle Using a Rotating Torsion Balance
• Quantum Test of the Universality of Free Fall
• Test of the Gravitational Redshift with Galileo Satellites in an Eccentric Orbit
• Light-pulse atom interferometry
• The Doppler shift in a Schwarzschild spacetime