Special relativity: will it survive the next 101 years?

R.W.P. Drever (auth.), Jürgen Ehlers, Claus Lämmerzahl (eds.)9783540345220, 9783540345237, 3540345221

After a century of successes, physicists still feel the need to probe the limits of the validity of theories based on special relativity. Canonical approaches to quantum gravity, non-commutative geometry, string theory and unification scenarios predict tiny violations of Lorentz invariance at high energies.

The present book, based on a recent seminar devoted to such frontier problems, contains reviews of the foundations of special relativity and the implications of Poincaré invariance as well as comprehensive accounts of experimental results and proposed tests.

The book addresses, besides researchers in the field, everyone interested in the conceptual and empirical foundations of our knowledge about space, time and matter.

Table of contents :
Front Matter….Pages I-XVI
Isotropy of Inertia: A Sensitive Early Experimental Test….Pages 3-14
The Challenge of Practice: Einstein, Technological Development and Conceptual Innovation….Pages 15-31
Front Matter….Pages I-XVI
Foundations of Special Relativity Theory….Pages 35-44
Algebraic and Geometric Structures in Special Relativity….Pages 45-111
Quantum Theory in Accelerated Frames of Reference….Pages 112-132
Vacuum Fluctuations, Geometric Modular Action and Relativistic Quantum Information Theory….Pages 133-162
Spacetime Metric from Local and Linear Electrodynamics: A New Axiomatic Scheme….Pages 163-187
Front Matter….Pages I-XVI
Overview of the Standard Model Extension: Implications and Phenomenology of Lorentz Violation….Pages 191-226
Anything Beyond Special Relativity?….Pages 227-278
Doubly Special Relativity as a Limit of Gravity….Pages 279-298
Corrections to Flat-Space Particle Dynamics Arising from Space Granularity….Pages 299-345
Front Matter….Pages I-XVI
Test Theories for Lorentz Invariance….Pages 349-384
Test of Lorentz Invariance Using a Continuously Rotating Optical Resonator….Pages 385-400
A Precision Test of the Isotropy of the Speed of Light Using Rotating Cryogenic Optical Cavities….Pages 401-415
Rotating Resonator-Oscillator Experiments to Test Lorentz Invariance in Electrodynamics….Pages 416-450
Recent Experimental Tests of Special Relativity….Pages 451-478
Experimental Test of Time Dilation by Laser Spectroscopy on Fast Ion Beams….Pages 479-492
Tests of Lorentz Symmetry in the Spin-Coupling Sector….Pages 493-505
Do Evanescent Modes Violate Relativistic Causality?….Pages 506-531