4.8 Article

Improved Tests of Local Position Invariance Using 87Rb and 133Cs Fountains

Journal

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
Volume 109, Issue 8, Pages -

Publisher

AMER PHYSICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.080801

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Funding

  1. LNE
  2. SYRTE's technical services

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We report tests of local position invariance based on measurements of the ratio of the ground state hyperfine frequencies of Cs-133 and Rb-87 in laser-cooled atomic fountain clocks. Measurements extending over 14 years set a stringent limit to a possible variation with time of this ratio: d ln(nu(Rb)/nu(Cs))/dt = (-1.39 +/- 0.91) x 10(-16) yr(-1). This improves by a factor of 7.7 over our previous report [H. Marion et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 150801 (2003)]. Our measurements also set the first limit to a fractional variation of the Rb/Cs frequency ratio with gravitational potential at the level of c(2)d ln(nu(Rb)/nu(Cs))/dU = (0.11 +/- 1.04) x 10(-6), providing a new stringent differential redshift test. The above limits equivalently apply to the fractional variation of the quantity alpha(-0.49)(g(Rb)/g(Cs)), which involves the fine-structure constant alpha and the ratio of the nuclear g-factors of the two alkalis. The link with variations of the light quark mass is also presented together with a global analysis combining other available highly accurate clock comparisons.

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