[Rahmen beseitigen]

Experimental Tests of Special Relativity
- Where to find some

I've been asked several times where one can find a description of tests of special relativity (SR). This is a wide field, especially if one takes into account those experiments providing indirect tests of SR, viz. tests of general relativity and all those experimental results of particle physics which presuppose SR.

I won't list GR test here, those you can find in the two books by Clifford M. Will, Was Einstein right? Putting General Relativity to the Test (Basic Books, New York 1986) which is aimed at a more general audience, and Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics. (Cambridge Univ. Press 1981) which is more technical.

I'm no expert on these tests, this is just a page of pointers to the literature. The basic information comes from Appendix B of Special Relativity by Ulrich E. Schröder (World Scientific: Singapore 1990), which again acknowledges as a source D. Newman et al., Phys. Rev. Letters 40 (1978), 1355. I vaguely remember coming across some "resource letter" in the American Journal of Physics covering similar ground, I don't know the exact reference, though - if any of you do, please drop me a mail.

Now, for the tests themselves, just a short description taken from Schröders book and the reference.

• Measuring ether drift à la Michelson-Morley with an interference experiment:
  T. S. Jaseja et al. in Phys. Rev. 133 (1964), p. A 1221.

• Measuring the quadratic Doppler effect predicted by SR, using a hydrogen maser:
  R. F. C. Vessot and M. W. Levine in Metrologia 6 (1970), p. 116.

• Measuring the quadratic Doppler effect predicted by SR via the Mössbauer effect:
  R. V. Pound and G. A. Febka, Jr. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 (1960), p. 274.

• Still the quadratic Doppler effect, this time looking at the spectral lines of moving atoms:
  H. I. Mandelberg and L. Witten in J. Opt. Soc. Am. 52 (1962), p. 529.

• Same thing for the transversal Doppler effect, also via Mössbauer:
  H. Hay, J. Schiffer, T. Cranshaw and P. Egelstaff in Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 (160), p. 165.

• Measuring time dilation via the lifetime of high-speed pions in a beam:
  D> S. Ayres et al. in Phys. Rev. D3 (1971), p. 1051.

• Measuring time dilation with atomic clocks:
  J. C. Hafele and R. E. Keating in Science 177 (1972), p. 166.

• Measuring time dilation via the lifetime of high-speed muons in a storage ring:
  J. Bailey et al. in Nature 268 (1977), p. 301.

• Measuring the velocity of light emitted by fast sources, using accelerated particles:
  T. Alväger et al. in Phys. Lett. 12 (1964), p. 260.

• Measuring the velocity of light emitted by fast sources, using the timing of pulses from a binary star:
  K. Brecher in Phys. Rev. Lett. 39 (1977), p. 1236 (E).

• Measuring the relativistic mass of moving protons:
  D. J. Grove and J. G. Fox in Phys. Rev. 90 (1953), p. 378.

  V. P. Zrelow, A. A. Tyapkin und P. S. Farago in Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 34 (1958), p. 555 (in English: Sov. Phys. JETP 7 (1958), p. 384)

• Measuring the g-factor of the muon by looking at its precession in a storage ring:
  J. Bailey et al. in Nuovo Cimento A9 (1972), p. 369.

  J. Bailey et al. in Phys. Lett. 68 B (1977), p. 191.

• Measuring the g-factor of the electron by looking at its precession in an electromagnetic trap:
  J. Wesley and A. Rich in Phys. Rev. A4 (1971), p. 1341.

  R. Van Dyck, P. Schwinberg and H. Dehmelt in Phys. Rev. Lett. 38 (1977), p. 310.

Back to Markus Pössel's AEI homepage