Spinning particles coupled to gravity and the validity of the universality of free fall

Sergio A. Hojman, Felipe A. Asenjo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent experimental work has determined that free falling 87Rb atoms on Earth, with vertically aligned spins, follow geodesics, thus apparently ruling out spin-gravitation interactions. It is showed that while some spinning matter models coupled to gravitation referenced to in that work seem to be ruled out by the experiment, those same experimental results confirm theoretical results derived from a Lagrangian description of spinning particles coupled to gravity constructed over forty years ago. A proposal to carry out (similar but) different experiments which will help to test the validity of the universality of free fall as opposed to the correctness of the aforementioned Lagrangian theory, is presented.

Original languageEnglish
Article number115011
JournalClassical and Quantum Gravity
Volume34
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - 19 May 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Lagrangian description
  • spin-gravity coupling
  • spinning massive particle

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