Particle detectors, cavities, and the weak equivalence principle

Metric fluctuations and the Weak Equivalence Principle

We describe space–time fluctuations by means of small fluctuations of the metric on a given background metric. From a minimally coupled Klein–Gordon equation we obtain within a weakfield approximation up to second order and an averaging procedure over a finite space–time scale given by the quantum particle in the non–relativistic limit a modified Schrödinger equation. The dominant modification ...

J ul 2 00 3 Particle detectors , geodesic motion , and the equivalence principle

It is shown that quantum particle detectors are not reliable probes of spacetime structure. In particular, they fail to distinguish between inertial and non-inertial motion in a general spacetime. To prove this, we consider detectors undergoing circular motion in an arbitrary static spherically symmetric spacetime, and give a necessary and sufficient condition for the response function to vanis...

Dark-Matter-Induced Weak Equivalence Principle Violation

Dark-matter-induced violation of the weak equivalence principle.

A long-range fifth force coupled to dark matter can induce a coupling to ordinary matter if the dark matter interacts with standard model fields. We consider constraints on such a scenario from both astrophysical observations and laboratory experiments. We also examine the case where the dark matter is a weakly interacting massive particle, and derive relations between the coupling to dark matt...

Violation of the Weak Equivalence Principle in Bekenstein’s theory

Bekenstein has shown that violation of Weak Equivalence Principle is strongly supressed in his model of charge variation. In this paper, it is shown that nuclear magnetic energy is large enough to produce observable effects in Eötvös experiments.