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Phys. Rev. D 74, 081101(R) (2006) [5 pages]

Improved test of Lorentz invariance in electrodynamics using rotating cryogenic sapphire oscillators

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Paul L. Stanwix1,*, Michael E. Tobar1, Peter Wolf2,3, Clayton R. Locke1, and Eugene N. Ivanov1
1University of Western Australia, School of Physics M013, 35 Stirling Hwy., Crawley 6009 WA, Australia
2LNE-SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, 61 Av. de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
3Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Pavillon de Breteuil, 92312 Sèvres Cedex, France

Received 11 August 2006; published 4 October 2006

We present new results from our test of Lorentz invariance, which compares two orthogonal cryogenic sapphire microwave oscillators rotating in the lab. We have now acquired over 1 year of data, allowing us to avoid the short data set approximation (less than 1 year) that assumes no cancellation occurs between the κ˜e- and κ˜o+ parameters from the photon sector of the standard model extension. Thus, we are able to place independent limits on all eight κ˜e- and κ˜o+ parameters. Our result represents up to a factor of 10 improvement over previous nonrotating measurements (which independently constrained seven parameters) and is a slight improvement (except for κ˜e-ZZ) over results from previous rotating experiments that assumed the short data set approximation. Also, an analysis in the Robertson-Mansouri-Sexl framework allows us to place a new limit on the isotropy parameter PMM=δ-β+1/2 of 9.4(8.1)×10-11, an improvement of a factor of 2.

© 2006 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.74.081101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.74.081101
PACS:
03.30.+p, 06.30.Ft, 11.30.Cp, 84.40.−x

*Electronic address: pstanwix@physics.uwa.edu.au