Lorentz symmetry and very long baseline interferometry

Abstract

Lorentz symmetry violations can be described by an effective field theory framework that contains both general relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics called the Standard Model extension (SME). Recently, postfit analysis of Gravity Probe B and binary pulsars led to an upper limit at the ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ level on the time-time coefficient ${\overline{s}}^{TT}$ of the pure-gravity sector of the minimal SME. In this work, we derive the observable of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) in SME and then implement it into a real data analysis code of geodetic VLBI observations. Analyzing all available observations recorded since 1979, we compare estimates of ${\overline{s}}^{TT}$ and errors obtained with various analysis schemes, including global estimations over several time spans, and with various Sun elongation cutoff angles, and by analysis of radio source coordinate time series. We obtain a constraint on ${\overline{s}}^{TT}=(\ensuremath{-}5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}8)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}5}$, directly fitted to the observations and improving by a factor of 5 previous postfit analysis estimates.