Violation of Universality of Free Fall by Fast-moving Test Bodies

by Open Science Repository Physics
(December, 2015)

Abstract

The Universality of Free Fall (UFF) and the Weak Equivalent Principle (WEP) are crucial for Einstein’s theory of gravity. In this article, we show that fast-moving test bodies violate UFF. A well-known problem of WEP is its lack of clarity about the inertial masses, e.g., the gravitational mass is equal to the rest mass for test bodies whereas it is equal to the relativistic mass, T^μν, for the source of gravitational fields (S-GF). To resolve this problem we expand WEP into three Sub-WEPs: WEP-I, WEP-II, and WEP-III. This allows us to define a new precise WEP where WEP-I is for slow-moving test bodies/S-GFs and WEP-II or WEP-III is for fast-moving test bodies/S-GFs. Not only is WEP-I valid and equivalent to UFF for slow-moving test bodies, it is also valid for slow-moving S-GFs. Either WEP-II or WEP-III is applicable to fast-moving test bodies/S-GFs. A synchrotron-type experiment is designed to directly verify both the predicted violation of UFF and the un-demonstrated WEP-II or WEP-III. Experimental confirmation of WEP-II would lead to an internal U (1) symmetry of gravity.

Keywords: Universality of Free Fall, Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP), Gravitational Experiment, Synchrotron-type Experiment, Einstein’s theory of gravity.

Full text

Violation of Universality of Free Fall by Fast-moving Test Bodies