Equivalence of Active and Passive Gravitational Mass Tested with Lunar Laser Ranging
Vishwa Vijay Singh, Jürgen Müller, Liliane Biskupek, Eva Hackmann, Cláus Lämmerzahl
Abstract
Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) measures the distance between observatories on Earth and retro-reflectors on the Moon since 1969. In this Letter, we study the possible violation of the equivalence of passive and active gravitational mass (m_{a}/m_{p}), for aluminum (Al) and iron (Fe), using LLR data. Our new limit of 3.9×10^{-14} is about 100 times better than that of Bartlett and Van Buren [Equivalence of Active and Passive Gravitational Mass Using the Moon, Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 21 (1986)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.57.21] reflecting the benefit of the many years of LLR data.
Topics & Concepts
Laser rangingPhysicsGravitationRangingEquivalence principle (geometric)Gravitational waveLaserAstrophysicsAstronomyOpticsGeodesyClassical mechanicsGeologyGeophysics and Gravity MeasurementsCosmology and Gravitation TheoriesRelativity and Gravitational Theory