New methods of testing Lorentz violation in electrodynamics

Abstract

We investigate experiments that are sensitive to the scalar and parity-odd coefficients for Lorentz violation in the photon sector of the standard model extension (SME). We show that of the classic tests of special relativity, Ives-Stilwell (IS) experiments are sensitive to the scalar coefficient, but at only parts in ${10}^{5}$ for the state-of-the-art experiment. We then propose asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers with different electromagnetic properties in the two arms, including recycling techniques based on travelling wave resonators to improve the sensitivity. With present technology we estimate that the scalar and parity-odd coefficients may be measured with a sensitivity better than parts in ${10}^{11}$ and ${10}^{15}$ respectively.