GAUGE: The grAnd unification and gravity explorer

Journal article

The GAUGE (GrAnd Unification and Gravity Explorer) mission proposes to use a drag-free spacecraft platform onto which a number of experiments are attached. They are designed to address a number of key issues at the interface between gravity and unification with the other forces of nature. The equivalence principle is to be probed with both a high-precision test using classical macroscopic test bodies, and, to lower precision, using microscopic test bodies via cold-atom interferometry. These two equivalence principle tests will explore string-dilaton theories and the effect of space-time fluctuations respectively. The macroscopic test bodies will also be used for intermediate-range inverse-square law and an axion-like spin-coupling search. The microscopic test bodies offer the prospect of extending the range of tests to also include short-range inverse-square law and spin-coupling measurements as well as looking for evidence of quantum decoherence due to space-time fluctuations at the Planck scale. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008.

Authors: Amelino-Camelia, G; Aplin, K; Arndt, M; Barrow, J; Bingham, R

• Journal: Experimental Astronomy
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 549-572
• Publication date: 2009-02-01
• DOI: 10.1007/s10686-008-9086-9
• EISSN: 1572-9508
• ISSN: 0922-6435
• Language: English
• Keywords: Mass-spin coupling; Fundamental physics; Space mission; Equivalence principle; Atom interferometry