Search for Anisotropic Light Propagation as a Function of Laser Beam Alignment Relative to the Earth's Velocity Vector

摘要

A laser diffraction experiment was conducted to study light propagation in air. The experiment is easy to reproduce and it is based on simple optical principles. Two optical sensors (segmented photo-diodes) are used for measuring the position of diffracted light spots with a precision better than 0.1 micrometer. The goal is to look for signals of anisotropic light propagation as function of the laser beam alignment to the Earth's motion (solar barycenter motion) obtained by COBE. Two raster search techniques have been used. First, a laser beam fixed in the laboratory frame scans in space due to Earth's rotation. Second, a laser beam mounted on a turntable system scans actively in space by turning the table. The results obtained with both methods show that the course of light rays are affected by the motion of the Earth, and a predominant first order quantity describes well the experimental results. This result differs in amount of 21% from the Special Relativity Theory prediction and that supplies the value of a=-1/2 (isotropy).