Length measurement in accelerated systems

TL;DR

This paper examines the constraints on length measurements by accelerated observers in Minkowski spacetime, revealing that accurate measurements are only feasible within a very limited region near the observer due to the hypothesis of locality.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the limitations of the hypothesis of locality for length measurements in accelerated frames, highlighting the small neighborhood where it remains valid.

Findings

Length measurements are only consistent in a small neighborhood around the observer.

The validity region's size is negligible compared to the acceleration length.

The hypothesis of locality has limited applicability in accelerated systems.

Abstract

We investigate the limitations of length measurements by accelerated observers in Minkowski spacetime brought about via the hypothesis of locality, namely, the assumption that an accelerated observer at each instant is equivalent to an otherwise identical momentarily comoving inertial observer. We find that consistency can be achieved only in a rather limited neighborhood around the observer with linear dimensions that are negligibly small compared to the characteristic acceleration length of the observer.