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Calorimetric test of special relativity

Journal Article · · Physical Review, A (General Physics)
 [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  2. Bayview Towers, San Francisco, CA (United States)

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 μA, 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.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1446354
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB--2890
Journal Information:
Physical Review, A (General Physics), Journal Name: Physical Review, A (General Physics) Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 29; ISSN PLRAAN; ISSN 0556-2791
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (6)

The Caloric Theory of Adiabatic Compression journal June 1958
New limit on independence of charge and velocity journal July 1979
The Essential Tension book January 1977
A beam monitor system for high-intensity photon beam in the multi-GeV range journal February 1970
Is an electron's charge independent of its velocity? journal December 1977
New Experimental Evidence for the Existence of a Neutrino journal May 1938

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