Method for Constraining Light Speed Anisotropy by Using Fiber Optics Gyroscope Experiments

摘要

The Mansouri-Sexl theory is a well known test theory of relativity. Mansouri and Sexl dealt with the theory of the Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike and Ives-Stilwell experiments but left out the very interesting Sagnac experiment. In the following paper we will present a novel way of detecting anisotropy effects in (Lω)v / c2 via a reenactment of the Sagnac experiment using fiber optic gyroscopes (FOG) where L is the length of the fiber and ω is the angular speed of the FOG. We show how the fiber optics gyroscopes are used for constraining light speed anisotropy in the framework of the Mansouri-Sexl test theory. We also show an interesting amplification effect due to the use of the Mansouri-Sexl slow clock transport equations in conjunction with FOGs. Our paper is divided into four main sections: in the first one we give an overview of the Mansouri-Sexl test theory of special relativity, in the second one we give a historical perspective of the Sagnac experiment, in the third section we formulate the Mansouri-Sexl theory for the Sagnac experiment and we conclude with experimental setup and results.