Plans to Improve The Experimental Limit in The Comparison of the East-West and West-East One-Way Light Propagation Times on The Rotating Earth

C.O. Alley, T.E. Kiess, R.A. Nelson, A.V. Sergienko, Y.H. Shih, B.C. Wang, F.M. Yang

Abstract:	The preceding paper describes the results so far (interrupted in the Spring of 1989 because of lack of funds) of an experiment comparing the one-way light propagation times on the surface of the rotating Earth. For the 20 Km path length component in the East-West direction the predicted difference between the opposite sense propagation times would be 160 ps, if the = 360 Km/s surface speed of the Earth gives effective light speeds of 3x10^8 m/s +/- 360 m/s. This could load to a prediction of the difference between the clock transport and the light pulse synchronization methods described in the preceding paper: AT = 0.5 (160) = 80 ps. me current upper bound of = 100 ps for AT is limited by poorly understood systematic errors. The most important seems to be intensity-dependent time delays in the remote light pulse avalanche photo-diode detector. This will be replaced by a continuously operating circular scan streak camera having single photon sensitivity and a time resolution of = 5 ps. (This camera has recently been developed by the Xian Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics in the P.R.C.). Better isolation from shocks and vibration for the Sigma-Tau hydrogen maser during transport will be provided. It is hoped that AT < 20 ps can be achieved.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 24th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting December 1 - 3, 1992 Ritz-Carlton Hotel McLean, Virginia
Pages:	105 - 112
Cite this article:	Alley, C.O., Kiess, T.E., Nelson, R.A., Sergienko, A.V., Shih, Y.H., Wang, B.C., Yang, F.M., "Plans to Improve The Experimental Limit in The Comparison of the East-West and West-East One-Way Light Propagation Times on The Rotating Earth," Proceedings of the 24th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting, McLean, Virginia, December 1992, pp. 105-112.
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