Sagnac Effect, Ring Lasers and Terrestrial Tests of Gravity

Abstract

Light can be used as a probe to explore the structure of space-time: this is usual in astrophysical and cosmological tests, however it has been recently suggested that this can be done also in terrestrial laboratories. Namely, the GINGER project aims at measuring post-Newtonian effects, such as the gravito-magnetic ones, in an Earth based laboratory, by means of a ring lasers array. Here, we first review the theoretical foundations of the Sagnac Effect, on which ring lasers are based, and then we study the Sagnac Effect in a terrestrial laboratory, emphasizing the origin of the gravitational contributions that GINGER aims at measuring. Moreover, we show that accurate measurements allow to set constraints on theories of gravity different from General Relativity. Eventually, we describe the experimental setup of GINGER.