Effects of the Lorentz invariance violation in Coulomb interaction in nuclei and atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how violations of Lorentz invariance could cause anisotropy in Coulomb interactions, using experimental data from 21Ne to significantly tighten limits on such violations and the isotropy of the speed of light.

Contribution

It provides the first stringent experimental limits on Lorentz violation effects in Coulomb interactions within nuclei and atoms, improving previous bounds by seven orders of magnitude.

Findings

Limits on Lorentz violation in 21Ne set new bounds on Coulomb anisotropy.

Speed of light is constrained to be isotropic to one part in 10^28.

Experimental data significantly tighten previous constraints on Lorentz symmetry violations.

Abstract

Anisotropy in the speed of light that has been constrained by Michelson-Morley-type experiments also generates anisotropy in the Coulomb interactions. This anisotropy can manifest itself as an energy anisotropy in nuclear and atomic experiments. Here the experimental limits on Lorentz violation in 21Ne are used to improve the limits on the Lorentz symmetry in the photon sector, namely the anisotropy of the speed of light and the Coulomb interactions, by 7 orders of magnitude in comparison with previous experiments: the speed of light is isotropic to a part in E-28.