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# The MICROSCOPE mission: first results of a space test of the Equivalence Principle

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### Abstract

According to the Weak Equivalence Principle, all bodies should fall at the same rate in a gravitational field. The MICROSCOPE satellite, launched in April 2016, aims to test its validity at the $$10^{-15}$$ precision level, by measuring the force required to maintain two test masses (of titanium and platinum alloys) exactly in the same orbit. A non-vanishing result would correspond to a violation of the Equivalence Principle, or to the discovery of a new long-range force. Analysis of the first data gives $$\delta\rm{(Ti,Pt)}= [-1 \pm 9 (\mathrm{stat}) \pm 9 (\mathrm{syst})] \times 10^{-15}$$ (1$$\sigma$$ statistical uncertainty) for the titanium-platinum E\"otv\"os parameter characterizing the relative difference in their free-fall accelerations.

### Most cited references10

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### The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment

(2014)
The status of experimental tests of general relativity and of theoretical frameworks for analyzing them is reviewed and updated. Einstein’s equivalence principle (EEP) is well supported by experiments such as the Eötvös experiment, tests of local Lorentz invariance and clock experiments. Ongoing tests of EEP and of the inverse square law are searching for new interactions arising from unification or quantum gravity. Tests of general relativity at the post-Newtonian level have reached high precision, including the light deflection, the Shapiro time delay, the perihelion advance of Mercury, the Nordtvedt effect in lunar motion, and frame-dragging. Gravitational wave damping has been detected in an amount that agrees with general relativity to better than half a percent using the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar, and a growing family of other binary pulsar systems is yielding new tests, especially of strong-field effects. Current and future tests of relativity will center on strong gravity and gravitational waves.
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### The String Dilaton and a Least Coupling Principle

(1994)
It is pointed out that string-loop modifications of the low-energy matter couplings of the dilaton may provide a mechanism for fixing the vacuum expectation value of a massless dilaton in a way which is naturally compatible with existing experimental data. Under a certain assumption of universality of the dilaton coupling functions , the cosmological evolution of the graviton-dilaton-matter system is shown to drive the dilaton towards values where it decouples from matter (Least Coupling Principle"). Quantitative estimates are given of the residual strength, at the present cosmological epoch, of the coupling to matter of the dilaton. The existence of a weakly coupled massless dilaton entails a large spectrum of small, but non-zero, observable deviations from general relativity. In particular, our results provide a new motivation for trying to improve by several orders of magnitude the various experimental tests of Einstein's Equivalence Principle (universality of free fall, constancy of the constants,\dots).
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### Torsion-balance tests of the weak equivalence principle

(2012)
We briefly summarize motivations for testing the weak equivalence principle and then review recent torsion-balance results that compare the differential accelerations of beryllium-aluminum and beryllium-titanium test body pairs with precisions at the part in $$10^{13}$$ level. We discuss some implications of these results for the gravitational properties of antimatter and dark matter, and speculate about the prospects for further improvements in experimental sensitivity.
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### Author and article information

###### Journal
04 December 2017
1712.01176