Hitoshi Kitada (hitoshi@kitada.com)
Sat, 13 Mar 1999 15:35:51 +0900
Dear Stephen,
Eric seems to put his point on which is correct, Weyl or Einstein. I think,
however, the point is to find an explanation of the experiment of R. Collela,
A. W. Overhauser and S. A. Werner in "Observation of gravitationally induced
quantum mechanics," Phys. Rev. Lett. 34 (1975), 1472-1474, not to find a
conclusion of a kind of religious judgements like which of Weyl or Einstein is
correct.
Best wishes,
Hitoshi Kitada
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Paul King <stephenk1@home.com>
To: time@kitada.com <time@kitada.com>
Date: Saturday, March 13, 1999 12:37 PM
Subject: [time 7] Re: Gravitational Aharonov-Bohm Effect
>This applies to Local Time theory!
>
>
>Eric Forgy <forgy@uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>On 13 Mar 1999 00:11:17 GMT, you wrote:
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>A while back, I asked about a relation between vector potentials and
>>connection coefficients. I then learned that this is at the heart of
>>gauge theory. I was interested in Weyl's unification of gravitation and
>>electromagnetism. While reading about Weyl's theory in the book "The
>>Dawning of Gauge Theory" by O'Raifeartaigh, it gave an argument (one of
>>many) why Weyl's theory was incorrect. One argument that comes to mind
>>is it mentioned that the conformal rescaling of the metric would lead to
>>a so-called "gravitational Aharonov-Bohm" effect. To quote directly
>>
>>pg.85
>>
>>"...one can summarize Einstein's objection to Weyl's theory as the
>>statement that. according to atomic spectroscopy, there is no
>>Aharonov-Bohm effect for gravitation."
>>
>>also pg.85
>>
>>"...in effect, Weyl was assigning an (imaginary) electric charge to the
>>metric tensor. From this point of view, Einstein's objection to the
>>theory is very understandable."
>>
>>That is a strong enough argument for me (and hopefully for anyone) to
>>see that Weyl's theory is in fact unphysical. However, the thing that
>>caught my attention is something I just read in a paper:
>>
>>"On Gauge Aspects of Gravity"
>>-Frank Gronwald and Friedrich W. Hehl
>>-http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9602013
>>
>>In this paper, they mention the experimental results of
>>Colella-Overhauser-Werner. I should quote directly to avoid
>>miscommunication:
>>
>>"Twenty years ago a new epoch began in gravity:
>>Colella-Overhauser-Werner measured by interferometric methods a phase
>>shift of the wave function of a neutron caused by the gravitational
>>field of the earth."
>>
>>This sounds a WHOLE LOT like a gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect to me.
>>Was the statement "there is no Aharonov-Bohm effect for gravitation" in
>>O'Raifeartaigh wrong?
>>
>>The absence of a measurable gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect in atomic
>>spectra can easily be explained by the relative magnitudes of the
>>electromagnetic and gravitational forces. This is why it was observed
>>via a study involving neutrons.
>>
>>I am speculating that the observed gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect is
>>compatible with a conformal rescaling of the metric under parallel
>>transport. Am I making sense?
>>
>>Thank you for any comments.
>>
>>Eric
>>
>>
>
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