Cosmic microwave background constraints on the strong equivalence principle

Abstract

We study the effect of a violation of the strong equivalence principle (SEP) on the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Such a violation would modify the weight of baryons in the primordial gravitational potentials and hence their impact in the establishment of the photon-baryon plasma acoustic oscillations before recombination. This cosmological Nordtvedt effect alters the odd peaks height of the CMB temperature anisotropy power spectrum. A gravitational baryonic mass density of the universe may already be inferred at the first peak scale from the analysis of WMAP data. Experimental constraints on a primordial SEP violation are derived from a comparison with the universe's inertial baryonic mass density measured either in a full analysis of the CMB, or in the framework of the standard big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN).