After a century of successes, physicists still feel the need to probe the limits of the validity of theories based on special relativity. Canonical approaches to quantum gravity, non-commutative geometry, string theory and unification scenarios predict tiny violations of Lorentz invariance at high energies.

The present book, based on a recent seminar devoted to such frontier problems, contains reviews of the foundations of special relativity and the implications of Poincaré invariance as well as comprehensive accounts of experimental results and proposed tests.

The book addresses, besides researchers in the field, everyone interested in the conceptual and empirical foundations of our knowledge about space, time and matter.

Klappentext

After about a century of success, physicists feel the need to probe the limits of validity of special-relativity base theories. This book is the outcome of a special seminar held on this topic. The authors gather in a single volume an extensive collection of introductions and reviews of the various facets involved, and also includes detailed discussion of philosophical and historical aspects.

Inhalt

Historical and Philosophical Aspects.- Isotropy of Inertia: A Sensitive Early Experimental Test.- The Challenge of Practice: Einstein, Technological Development and Conceptual Innovation.- Foundation and Formalism.- Foundations of Special Relativity Theory.- Algebraic and Geometric Structures in Special Relativity.- Quantum Theory in Accelerated Frames of Reference.- Vacuum Fluctuations, Geometric Modular Action and Relativistic Quantum Information Theory.- Spacetime Metric from Local and Linear Electrodynamics: A New Axiomatic Scheme.- Violations of Lorentz Invariance?.- Overview of the Standard Model Extension: Implications and Phenomenology of Lorentz Violation.- Anything Beyond Special Relativity?.- Doubly Special Relativity as a Limit of Gravity.- Corrections to Flat-Space Particle Dynamics Arising from Space Granularity.- Experimental Search.- Test Theories for Lorentz Invariance.- Test of Lorentz Invariance Using a Continuously Rotating Optical Resonator.- A Precision Test of the Isotropy of the Speed of Light Using Rotating Cryogenic Optical Cavities.- Rotating Resonator-Oscillator Experiments to Test Lorentz Invariance in Electrodynamics.- Recent Experimental Tests of Special Relativity.- Experimental Test of Time Dilation by Laser Spectroscopy on Fast Ion Beams.- Tests of Lorentz Symmetry in the Spin-Coupling Sector.- Do Evanescent Modes Violate Relativistic Causality?.