The Pound-Rebka experiment is a well known experiment to test Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. It was proposed by R. V. Pound and G. A. Rebka Jr. in 1959,[1] and was the last of the classical tests of general relativity to be verified (in the same year). It is a gravitational redshift experiment, which measures the redshift of light moving in a gravitational field, or, equivalently, a test of the general relativity prediction that clocks should run at different rates at different places in a gravitational field. It is considered to be the experiment that ushered in an era of precision tests of general relativity.

The test is based on the following principle. When an atom transits from an excited state to a base state, it emits a photon with a specific frequency and energy. When the same atom in its base state encounters a photon with that same frequency and energy, it will absorb that photon and transit to the excited state. If the photon's frequency and energy is different by even a little, the atom cannot absorb it (this is the basis of quantum theory). When the photon travels through a gravitational field, its frequency and therefore its energy will change due to the gravitational redshift. As a result the receiving atom can no longer absorb it. But if the emitting atom moves with just the right speed relative to the receiving atom the resulting doppler shift will cancel out the gravitational red shift and the receiving atom will be able to absorb the photon. The "right" relative speed of the atoms is therefore a measure of the gravitational redshift.

The energy associated with gravitational redshift over a distance of 22.5 meters is very small. The fractional change in energy is given by δE/E, is equal to gh/c2=2.5x10^-15. Therefore high energy (small wavelength) photons are required to detect such minute differences. (Think of wave length as the distance between marks on a ruler). The 14 keV gamma rays emitted by iron-57 when it transitions to its base state proved to be sufficient for this experiment.

Normally, when an atom emits or absorbs a photon, it also moves (recoils) a little, which takes away some energy from the photon due to the principle of conservation of momentum. The Doppler shift required to compensate for this recoil effect would be much larger (about 5 orders of magnitude) than the Doppler shift required to offset the gravitational redshift. But in 1958 Mößbauer reported that all atoms in a solid lattice absorb the recoil energy when a single atom in the lattice emits a gamma ray. Therefore the emitting atom will move very little (just like a cannon doesn't recoil much when you put lot of sandbags behind it).

This allowed Pound and Rebka to set up their experiment as a variation of Mößbauer spectroscopy. The test was carried out at Harvard University's Jefferson laboratory. A solid sample containing iron (57Fe) emitting gamma rays was placed in the center of a loudspeaker cone which was placed near the roof of the building. Another sample containing 57Fe was placed in the basement. The distance between this source and absorber was 22.5 meter (73.8 ft). The gamma rays traveled through a Mylar bag filled with helium to minimize scattering of the gamma rays. A scintillation counter was placed below the receiving 57Fe sample to detect the gamma rays that were not absorbed by the receiving sample. By vibrating the speaker cone the gamma ray source moved with varying speed, thus creating varying doppler shifts. When the doppler shift canceled out the gravitational redshift, the receiving sample absorbed gamma rays and the number of gamma rays detected by the scintillation counter dropped accordingly. The variation in absorption could be correlated with the phase of the speaker vibration, hence with the speed of the emitting sample and therefore the doppler shift. To compensate for possible systematic errors, Pound and Rebka varied the speaker frequency between 10 Hz and 50 Hz, interchanged the source and absorber-detector, and used different speakers (ferroelectric and moving coil magnetic transducer).[2].

The result confirmed that the predictions of general relativity were borne out at the 10% level.[3] This was later improved to better than the 1% level by Pound and Snider.[4]

Another test involving a hydrogen maser increased the accuracy of the measurement to about 10-4.[5]

Links

* Physical Review focus story.

* Experimental Tests of General Relativity.

References

1. ^ Pound, R. V.; Rebka Jr. G. A. (November 1, 1959). "Gravitational Red-Shift in Nuclear Resonance". Physical Review Letters 3 (9): 439-441. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.3.439. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.

2. ^ Mester, John (2006). "Experimental Tests of General Relativity": 9-11. Retrieved on 2007-04-13.

3. ^ Pound, R. V.; Rebka Jr. G. A. (April 1, 1960). "Apparent weight of photons". Physical Review Letters 4 (7): 337-341. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.4.337. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.

4. ^ Pound, R. V.; Snider J. L. (November 2, 1964). "Effect of Gravity on Nuclear Resonance". Physical Review Letters 13 (18): 539-540. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.13.539. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.

5. ^ Vessot, R. F. C.; M. W. Levine, E. M. Mattison, E. L. Blomberg, T. E. Hoffman, G. U. Nystrom, B. F. Farrel, R. Decher, P. B. Eby, C. R. Baugher, J. W. Watts, D. L. Teuber and F. D. Wills (December 29, 1980). "Test of Relativistic Gravitation with a Space-Borne Hydrogen Maser". Physical Review Letters 45 (26): 2081–2084. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.45.2081. Retrieved on 2006-09-24.