Cold Atom Clock Test of Lorentz Invariance in the Matter Sector

Peter Wolf, Fréderic Chapelet, Sébastien Bize, and André Clairon
Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 060801 – Published 15 February 2006

Abstract

We report on a new experiment that tests for a violation of Lorentz invariance (LI), by searching for a dependence of atomic transition frequencies on the orientation of the spin of the involved states (Hughes-Drever type experiment). The atomic frequencies are measured using a laser cooled Cs133 atomic fountain clock, operating on a particular combination of Zeeman substates. We analyze the results within the framework of the Lorentz violating standard model extension (SME), where our experiment is sensitive to a largely unexplored region of the SME parameter space, corresponding to first measurements of four proton parameters and improvements by 11 and 13 orders of magnitude on the determination of four others. In spite of the attained uncertainties, and of having extended the search into a new region of the SME, we still find no indication of LI violation.

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  • Received 16 November 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.060801

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Peter Wolf*, Fréderic Chapelet, Sébastien Bize, and André Clairon

  • LNE-SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, 61 Av. de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France

  • *On leave from Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Pavillon de Breteuil, 92312 Sèvres Cedex, France.

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Vol. 96, Iss. 6 — 17 February 2006

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