Clarification on theoretical predictions for general relativistic effects in frozen spin storage rings

TL;DR

This paper clarifies and reconciles differing theoretical predictions on general relativistic effects in frozen spin storage rings, which are crucial for precise electric dipole moment measurements and tests of general relativity.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis to clarify existing theoretical predictions of GR effects in frozen spin rings and discusses their implications for experiments measuring particle EDMs.

Findings

Reconciled previous conflicting predictions on GR effects.

Quantified systematic error cancellation in idealized conditions.

Highlighted importance of GR effects in EDM experiments.

Abstract

Electromagnetic moments of particles carry important information on their internal structure, as well as on the structure of the effective Lagrangian describing their underlying field theory. One of the cleanest observable of such kind is the electric dipole moment (EDM), since Standard Model estimates would imply very small, much less then 10^-30 ecm value for that quantity, whereas several Beyond Standard Model (BSM) theories happen to predict of the order of 10^-28 ecm EDM for elementary or hadronic particles. So far, precision EDM upper bounds are mainly available for neutrons via cold neutron experiments, and indirect measurements for electrons. Therefore, in the recent year there has been a growing interest for direct measurement of EDM for charged particles, such as electrons, protons, muons or light nuclei. Such measurements become possible in relativistic storage rings, called frozen spin storage rings. Many environmental factors give systematic backgrounds to the EDM signal, including General Relativity (GR), due to the gravitational field of the Earth. It turns out that, depending of the experimental scenario, the GR effect can be well above the planned EDM sensitivity. Therefore, it is both of concern as a source of systematics, as well as it can serve as a spin-off experiment for an independent test of GR. There are a handful of theoretical papers quantifying the GR systematics, delivering slightly different results. The aim of this paper is to clarify these claims, eventually try to reconcile these predictions, and to deduce their experimental implications. The closing section of the paper quantifies the field imperfection systematic error cancellation in the case of a so-called doubly-frozen spin storage ring setting, in the idealized axial symmetric limit.