Rotating Michelson-Morley experiment based on a dual cavity cryogenic sapphire oscillator

Author

Stanwix, P.L. ; Tobar, M.E. ; Winterflood, J. ; Ivanov, E.N. ; Susli, M. ; Hartnett, J.G. ; van Kann, F. ; Wolf, P.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Phys., Univ. of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

fYear

2004

fDate

23-27 Aug. 2004

Firstpage

757

Lastpage

761

Abstract

Recent experiments based on cryogenic microwave oscillators have tested the isotropy of the speed of light (Michelson-Morley experiment) at sensitivities of the order of a part in 10¹⁵, which is a similar sensitivity to other best tests. Further improvements of the accuracy in this type of experiment are not expected due to the already long data set and the systematic error limit. We have constructed a new rotating Michelson-Morley experiment consisting of two cylindrical cryogenic sapphire resonators. The temperature of the dual cavity is controlled at approximately 6 K where the beat frequency between the two oscillators is independent of temperature. By rotating the experiment, an improvement of several orders of magnitude in our sensitivity to light speed anisotropy is expected, as the relevant time variations will now be at a rotation frequency where the frequency stability of the cryogenic oscillators is at its best.

Keywords

cavity resonators; cryogenic electronics; crystal oscillators; frequency stability; light velocity measurement; microwave oscillators; sapphire; 6 K; Al₂O₃; cryogenic microwave oscillators; cylindrical cryogenic resonators; dual cavity cryogenic sapphire oscillator; frequency stability; light speed anisotropy sensitivity; light speed isotropy; rotating Michelson-Morley experiment; temperature independent oscillators beat frequency; Australia; Cryogenics; Frequency; Microwave oscillators; Physics; Stability; Standards development; Steel; Temperature sensors; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frequency Control Symposium and Exposition, 2004. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International

ISSN

1075-6787

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8414-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FREQ.2004.1418561

Filename

1418561