A novel test of Lorentz violation in the photon sector with an LC circuit

TL;DR

This paper proposes a sensitive LC circuit-based method to test Lorentz violation in the photon sector, achieving unprecedented sensitivity levels and improving previous laboratory limits by eight orders of magnitude.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup using a harmonically driven pick-up loop to detect Lorentz-violating signals with enhanced sensitivity.

Findings

Achieved sensitivity to Lorentz-violating background of $oxed{ extless} 10^{-31}$ GeV.

Demonstrated the method's potential to surpass previous laboratory limits by eight orders of magnitude.

Proposed a practical experimental configuration for future tests of Lorentz symmetry.

Abstract

In the presence of an external magnetic field, the Carroll-Field-Jackiw term introduces a displacement current proportional to the Lorentz-violating background that induces a time-dependent magnetic field. Axion-like particles or hidden photons could generate an analogous signal, potentially detectable with the set-up suggested by Sikivie, Tanner and Sullivan - a sensitive magnetometer coupled to a superconducting LC circuit. We show that a similar set-up, but with an externally driven pick-up loop whose area varies harmonically at $\sim$ Hz, can be used to probe the spatial components of the Lorentz-violating background to the level of $\lesssim 10^{-31}$ GeV. This is eight orders of magnitude more sensitive than previous laboratory-based limits.