| Calorimetric |
Calorimetric Test of Special Relativity
Physical Review A - Volume 29, Number 1 - April 1984
Calorimetric Test of Special Relativity
Dieter R. Walz and H. Pierre Noyes
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
Ricardo L. Carezani
Bayview Towers, Suite 810, 2601 Mission St. San Francisco, California 94110
(Received 29 March 1982; revised manuscript received 11 July 1983)
NOTE: After discovering the failure in the design of this experiment, Dr. Carezani proposed a new experiement called the New Radium E Experiment
Abstract
Momentum-analyzed beams of 20 and 17.326 GeV/c electrons with average currents of 4.23 and 4.55, and 9.48, 9.57, 14.4 and 15.66 mu A, respectively, are predicted by special relativity to have average powers of 84.5 and 91, and 164.3, 165.8, 249.5, and 271.3 kW, respectively. This prediction is checked to 30% in a calorimetric experiment using the temperature rise in the cooling water of a high-energy beam dump at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. To our knowledge, this is the first macroscopic test specifically carried out to test this aspect of special relativity at these particle energies and power levels, although an earlier sequence of tests using copper as the heat absorber have been performed at this laboratory at lower power levels, and confirms the theory to higher accuracy.
I. Introduction
As has been emphasized by Pierre Duhem, (1) a theoretical structure in physics is never tested in all its aspects, and as has been emphasized by Kuhn, (2) a theory is rarely tested unless an alternative theory is proposed. The alternative theory which led to the test presented here was developed by one of us (R.L.C.) in an effort to understand why the energy expected from beta decay did not show up in a calorimeter. Of course, this is now conventionally explained by neutrino theory, but the early direct tests of that theory by recoil experiments do not look very convincing.
The theory of autodynamics starts with a new discussion of systems in relative motion. A critique of the procedure used to obtain the equations of special relativity theory leads to a simplification of Lorentz's equations and to a unique system of "observer" and "observed." This system is used for phenomena with or without acceleration. Starting from Maxwell's equations in the form:
(E/c) (dEx / dt) + (4Pi / c)pv = curl H, div D = 4Pi p / E
the standard development [as given, for example, in E.G. Cullwick, Electromagnetism and Relativity (Wiley, New York, 1957)] leads, with B = (1 - v^2/c^2)^1/2, to the connection between frames S and S'
(E/c) (dEx / dt') + (8Pi / c)v'p' = (d/dy') [(Hz - (Ev'/c)Ey] / B + (d/dz') (Ev'y/b)
whereas for autodynamics B is multiplying rather than dividing. Other standard results are unaltered. The principle of momentum and energy conservation is maintained, but the equation relating energy to momentum becomes
[(vmo c^2E - 2E^2 - mo^2c^4)^2 + 4p^2mo^2c^6]^1/2 = mo^2c^4
The most appropriate application is to spontaneous autodynamics phenomena without contribution of energy from the external medium. The equations are summarized for comparison as follows:
When the experiment of Crane and Halpern (3) was analyzer using the theory of autodynamics the comparison was at least as good for autodynamics as for standard neutrino theory, but the accuracy of the data and scatter of the points did not allow a definite conclusion to be drawn. The theory of autodynamics attempts to explain this by allowing both the charge and the mass of an electron to decrease with velocity in such a way that the e/m ratio, and hence magnetic measurements, are unaffected. However, the theory then predicts that the energy deposited by stopping electrons in a calorimeter will be a small fraction of that predicted by special relativity, the reduction being a factor of
[1 - (1 - v^2/c^2)^1/2] / [(1 - v^2/c^2)^-1/2 - 1]
For 20 GeV electrons (1 - v^2/c^2)^-1/2 = 2 X 10^4/0.511 = 3.91 X 10^4, This factor is about 2.55 X 10^-5 showing that any measurable temperature rise in the cooling water flowing through the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) beam dump immediately rules out autodynamics, if the current in the beam has been correctly measured.
Of course, there are a number of direct and indirect experiments which show that charge cannot vary to the extent contemplated by autodynamics (4), one of the most sensitive being the differential motion of protons and electrons in atoms. If the charge is given by q = e(1 + kv^2/c^2), it has been shown by this type of analysis that (5) | K | 8 x 10^-19 using the overall neutrality of atoms. But since the question had been raised, and the beam dumps at SLAC are instrumented for temperature measurement, therefore providing a calorimeter that could be used practically, it seemed worthwhile to make the test.
It has been pointed out to us that calorimetric tests had already been performed at SLAC using copper as the heat-absorbing substance. (6) Since these tests were carried out in order to provide an absolute calibration for cross-section measurements, the accuracy was pushed down to 1%, which turns out to be a much higher precision than the 30% accuracy reported here. But since the power level we use is 2 orders of magnitude higher, and the method so conceptually simple, we felt justified in publishing our results.
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| Storm In Physics (2005) |
2nd book published by Dr. Carezani.
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