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- Title
FALLING RIGHT WHILE MOVING SLOW: TRUE TESTS OF THE WEAK EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE FOR ANTIPARTICLES.
- Authors
UNNIKRISHNAN, C. S.; GILLIES, G. T.
- Abstract
A significant question in experimental gravity is the nature of free fall of antiparticles under gravity and elaborate preparations are underway to directly test this with cold antihydrogen. Earlier, the Shapiro delay of supernova 1987A neutrinos was interpreted as testing the weak equivalence principle (WEP). We establish the surprising result that the Shapiro delay of relativistic particles does not test WEP for intrinsic properties or quantum numbers of particles or antiparticles. This is because essentially the entire gravitational mass of the relativistic neutrinos is contributed by kinetic energy, diluting to insignificance any EP violating contribution from intrinsic properties, by the relativistic factor. The crucial message here is that a true test of the WEP involving intrinsic properties of matter or antimatter - the foundation of relativistic gravity - necessarily requires nonrelativistic "cold" matter and antimatter.
- Subjects
INTERSTELLAR medium; ANTIMATTER; QUANTUM gravity; ANTIHYDROGEN; KINETIC energy; RELATIVISTIC particles; SUPERNOVA 1987A; EQUIVALENCE principle (Physics); MASS (Physics)
- Publication
International Journal of Modern Physics D: Gravitation, Astrophysics & Cosmology, 2012, Vol 21, Issue 11, p-1
- ISSN
0218-2718
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1142/S0218271812420163