Lorentz Violation and Sagnac Gyroscopes

Abstract

Sagnac gyroscopes with increased sensitivity are being developed and operated with a variety of goals including the measurement of General-Relativistic effects. We show that such systems can be used to search for Lorentz violation within the field-theoretic framework of the Standard-Model Extension, and that competitive sensitivities can be achieved. Special deviations from the inverse square law of gravity are among the phenomena that can be effectively sought with these systems. We present the necessary equations to obtain sensitivities to Lorentz violation in relevant experiments.