On the equivalence between rotation and gravity: "Gravitational" and "cosmological" redshifts in the laboratory

TL;DR

This paper revisits the M"ossbauer rotor effect, demonstrating its analogy with gravitational and cosmological redshifts within Einstein's general relativity, and refutes recent claims denying the clock synchronization effect.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the interpretation of the M"ossbauer rotor effect, linking it to gravitational and cosmological redshifts, and clarifies misconceptions about the clock synchronization effect.

Findings

The traditional redshift effect is analogous to gravitational redshift.

The additional clock synchronization effect is analogous to cosmological redshift.

The recent claim denying the clock synchronization effect is incorrect.

Abstract

The M\"ossbauer rotor effect recently gained a renewed interest due to the discovery and explanation of an additional effect of clock synchronization which has been missed for about 50 years, i.e. starting from a famous book of Pauli, till some recent experimental analyses. The theoretical explanation of such an additional effect is due to some recent papers in both the general relativistic and the special relativistic frameworks. In the first case (general relativistic framework) the key point of the approach is the Einstein's equivalence principle (EEP), which, in the words of the same Einstein, enables "the point of view to interpret the rotating system K' as at rest, and the centrifugal field as a gravitational field". In this paper, we analyse both the history of the M\"ossbauer rotor effect and its interpretation from the point of view of Einstein's general theory of relativity (GTR) by adding some new insight. In particular, it will be shown that, if on one hand the "traditional" effect of redshift has a strong analogy with the gravitational redshift, on the other hand the additional effect of clock synchronization has an intriguing analogy with the cosmological redshift. Finally, we show that a recent claim in the literature that the second effect of clock synchronization does not exist is not correct.