Proposal for a New Michelson-Morley Experiment Using a Single Whispering Spherical Mode Resonator

Abstract

A new Michelson-Morley experiment is proposed by measuring the beat frequency of two near degenerate modes with orthogonal propagation in a single spherical resonator. The unique properties of the experiment allow: 1. Substantial common mode rejection of some noise sources: 2. Simple calculation of the signal if Special Relativity is violated. We show that optimum filtering may be used to increase the signal to noise ratio, and to search for a preferred direction of the speed of light. Using this technique we show that a sensitivity limit of order 7.10^-19 is possible by integrating data over one month. We propose methods to veto systematic effects by correlating the output of more than one experiment.