TY - JOUR
T1 - Gravity Probe Spin
T2 - Prospects for measuring general-relativistic precession of intrinsic spin using a ferromagnetic gyroscope
AU - Fadeev, Pavel
AU - Wang, Tao
AU - Band, Y. B.
AU - Budker, Dmitry
AU - Graham, Peter W.
AU - Sushkov, Alexander O.
AU - Kimball, Derek F.Jackson
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Heising-Simons and Simons Foundations, the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-1707875, the DFG through the DIP program (No. FO703/2-1), and by a Fundamental Physics Innovation Award from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The work of D. B. supported in part by the DFG Project ID No. 390831469: EXC 2118 (PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement No. 695405), and the DFG Reinhart Koselleck Project. The work of A. S. supported in part by the US National Science Foundation Grant No. 1806557, US Department of Energy Grant No. DE-SC0019450, the Heising-Simons Foundation Grant No. 2015-039, the Simons Foundation Grant No. 641332, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant No. FG-2016-6728.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Physical Society.
PY - 2021/2/25
Y1 - 2021/2/25
N2 - An experimental test at the intersection of quantum physics and general relativity is proposed: measurement of relativistic frame dragging and geodetic precession using intrinsic spin of electrons. The behavior of intrinsic spin in spacetime dragged and warped by a massive rotating body is an experimentally open question, hence the results of such a measurement could have important theoretical consequences. Such a measurement is possible by using mm-scale ferromagnetic gyroscopes in orbit around the Earth. Under conditions where the rotational angular momentum of a ferromagnet is sufficiently small, a ferromagnet's angular momentum is dominated by atomic electron spins and is predicted to exhibit macroscopic gyroscopic behavior. If such a ferromagnetic gyroscope is sufficiently isolated from the environment, rapid averaging of quantum uncertainty via the spin-lattice interaction enables readout of the ferromagnetic gyroscope dynamics with sufficient sensitivity to measure both the Lense-Thirring (frame dragging) and de Sitter (geodetic precession) effects due to the Earth.
AB - An experimental test at the intersection of quantum physics and general relativity is proposed: measurement of relativistic frame dragging and geodetic precession using intrinsic spin of electrons. The behavior of intrinsic spin in spacetime dragged and warped by a massive rotating body is an experimentally open question, hence the results of such a measurement could have important theoretical consequences. Such a measurement is possible by using mm-scale ferromagnetic gyroscopes in orbit around the Earth. Under conditions where the rotational angular momentum of a ferromagnet is sufficiently small, a ferromagnet's angular momentum is dominated by atomic electron spins and is predicted to exhibit macroscopic gyroscopic behavior. If such a ferromagnetic gyroscope is sufficiently isolated from the environment, rapid averaging of quantum uncertainty via the spin-lattice interaction enables readout of the ferromagnetic gyroscope dynamics with sufficient sensitivity to measure both the Lense-Thirring (frame dragging) and de Sitter (geodetic precession) effects due to the Earth.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102023749&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.044056
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.044056
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85102023749
SN - 1550-7998
VL - 103
JO - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
JF - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
IS - 4
M1 - 044056
ER -