Testing the Equivalence Principle using Atomic Vacuum Energy Shifts

TL;DR

This paper explores testing the Einstein Equivalence Principle through atomic vacuum energy shifts, specifically analyzing the Lamb shift in non-metric gravity theories to assess potential deviations from standard physics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to test the equivalence principle using atomic vacuum energy shifts within the mu formalism of non-metric gravity theories.

Findings

Calculated red shift and time dilation parameters for vacuum energies

Proposed high-precision measurements to test equivalence principle validity

Provided theoretical framework for quantum vacuum energy tests

Abstract

We consider possible tests of the Einstein Equivalence Principle for quantum-mechanical vacuum energies by evaluating the Lamb shift transition in a class of non-metric theories of gravity described by the \tmu formalism. We compute to lowest order the associated red shift and time dilation parameters, and discuss how (high-precision) measurements of these quantities could provide new information on the validity of the equivalence principle.