URL: https://physikseminar.desy.de/hamburg/colloquia_in_2010/feb_16_2010/@@siteview
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GRAVI , an experiment to test Newton's law at very low accelerations
Hinrich Meyer (Wuppertal)
DESY Hörsaal, 17:00h
The motivation to check Newton's law at very low accelerations comes from apparent failures to correctly describe some basic dynamic features in astrophysics. This was discovered by Fritz Zwicky looking at the dynamics of galaxies in clusters (1933) and at the movement of stars in galaxies (1937). Attempts to reconcile the observations with Newton's law led to the introduction of dark matter dominating the matter content of the universe. However, also a modification of the law of Newton is rather successful from the phenomenological point of view (Milgrom 1983). In this context it seems indicated, to test Newton's law at very low values of the gravitational acceleration.
The experimental setup used here at DESY had been developed at the university of Wuppertal to precisely determine the gravitational constant G. Data taking proceeds for the new measurement rather routinely since 8/2009. The experimental setup will be described in detail and preliminary results will be discussed.
