Dresden 2013 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 28: Fundamentale Symmetrien

HK 28.5: Talk

Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 15:30–15:45, HSZ-103

³He-¹²⁹Xe-Comagnetometer: Search for a Lorentz-violating background field — •Fabian Allmendinger¹, Ulrich Schmidt¹, Werner Heil², Sergei Karpuk², Anja Scharth², Yuri Sobolev², Kathlynne Tullney², Martin Burghoff³, Wolfgang Kilian³, Silvia Knappe-Grüneberg³, Allard Schnabel³, Frank Seifert³, and Lutz Trahms³ — ¹Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg — ²Institut für Physik, Universität Mainz — ³PTB Berlin

The minimal Standard Model Extension (SME) of Kosteleckỳ et al. is a low energy effective field theory including operators which break Lorentz symmetry. It predicts an energy shift of nuclear spin states depending on the orientation of the spins relatively to a hypothetical Lorentz-violating background field. Our search for this effect is based on the measurement of free precession of nuclear spin polarized ³He and ¹²⁹Xe atoms in a homogeneous magnetic guiding field of about 400 nT using LT_C SQUID detectors. As the laboratory frame rotates with the earth, a Lorentz-violating background field would cause a sideral modulation of the precession frequencies. ³He-¹²⁹Xe-comagnetometry is used to cancel magnetic field drifts. The setup is placed in a strongly magnetically shielded room at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Berlin, allowing long coherence times of several hours for both gases. In this talk we will present the principle of measurement and current results.