IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v463y2010i7283d10.1038_nature08776.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A precision measurement of the gravitational redshift by the interference of matter waves

Author

Listed:
  • Holger Müller

    (366 Le Conte Hall MS 7300, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA)

  • Achim Peters

    (Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Hausvogteiplatz 5-7, 10117 Berlin, Germany)

  • Steven Chu

    (366 Le Conte Hall MS 7300, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    1000 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, District of Columbia 20585, USA)

Abstract

Clocking on to relativity A central prediction of general relativity states that a gravitational field slows the running of a clock. Previous measurements of this effect, known as gravitational redshift, have involved clocks at different heights, and until now this has been the least accurately determined of the parameters supporting curved space-time theories. Now this prediction has been confirmed to unprecedented accuracy using the results of lab experiments performed more than 10 years ago in a study of the acceleration of free fall. Analysis of the data — on quantum interference of single caesium atoms bobbing up and down in an atomic fountain — provides a measurement based on matter-wave interference that improves accuracy by a factor of 10,000.

Suggested Citation

  • Holger Müller & Achim Peters & Steven Chu, 2010. "A precision measurement of the gravitational redshift by the interference of matter waves," Nature, Nature, vol. 463(7283), pages 926-929, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:463:y:2010:i:7283:d:10.1038_nature08776
    DOI: 10.1038/nature08776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08776
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature08776?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:463:y:2010:i:7283:d:10.1038_nature08776. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.