A search for a composition-dependent gravitational force
Abstract
The weak equivalence principle (WEP) maintains that all objects in a uniform gravitational field fall at the same rate, and this rate is independent of composition. I have used the Northfield Mountain Pumped Storage Reservoir as a modulated source of gravitational mass and measured the acceleration of copper and polyethylene test masses towards the reservoir with a sensitive torsion pendulum. The geometry of the pendulum is such that any differential acceleration would manifest itself as a shift in the pendulum period. Therefore, the signature of a WEP-violating force would be a period shift that correlates with the rise and fall of the mass in the Northfield Mountain reservoir. I have looked for such a correlation and find that if there is a difference in the accelerations of copper and polyethylene toward the water in the reservoir, it is less that 6.0 x 10(exp -9) cm/s. We report the limits this places on the possible coupling strength of a possible composition dependent fifth force.
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- 1994
- Bibcode:
- 1994PhDT.........5N
- Keywords:
-
- Acceleration (Physics);
- Copper;
- Gravitation;
- Gravitational Fields;
- Polyethylenes;
- Experimentation;
- Pendulums;
- Reservoirs;
- Torsion;
- Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics