Identification of Error Sources in High Precision Weight Measurements of Gyroscopes

TL;DR

This study developed a high-precision measurement setup to investigate reported weight anomalies in gyroscopes, identifying error sources like vibration and precession, and found no significant anomalies within a specific measurement threshold.

Contribution

The paper presents a dedicated high-precision experimental setup and analysis that clarifies the causes of previous conflicting reports on gyroscope weight anomalies.

Findings

No weight anomaly detected within Δm/m<2.6×10⁻⁶

Identified vibration and precession as primary error sources

Resolved conflicting reports on gyroscope weight changes

Abstract

A number of weight anomalies have been reported in the past with respect to gyroscopes. Much attention was gained from a paper in Physical Review Letters, when Japanese scientists announced that a gyroscope loses weight up to $0.005\%$ when spinning only in the clockwise rotation with the gyroscope's axis in the vertical direction. Immediately afterwards, a number of other teams tried to replicate the effect, obtaining a null result. It was suggested that the reported effect by the Japanese was probably due to a vibration artifact, however, no final conclusion on the real cause has been obtained. We decided to build a dedicated high precision setup to test weight anomalies of spinning gyroscopes in various configurations. A number of error sources like precession and vibration and the nature of their influence on the measurements have been clearly identified, which led to the conclusive explanation of the conflicting reports. We found no anomaly within $\Delta m/m<2.6 \times 10^{-6}$ valid for both horizontal and vertical orientations.