last updated 1/6/2008 Gravity Lab Experimental Gravitation Program Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California, Irvine in collaboration with Professor Boynton's group at the University of Washington, Seattle University of California Irvine Department of Physics and Astronomy 4129 Frederick Reines Hall Irvine, CA 92697-4575 (949) 824-6373 lab (949) 824-2174 fax

Professor Riley D. Newman, rdnewman@uci.edu Dr. Eric C. Berg, Assistant Project Scientist, eberg@uci.edu William D. Cross, Graduate Student, wcross@uci.edu Former colleagues include: Jaim Bucay, undergraduate senior thesis, 2007 David Goekjian, undergraduate employee, 2006 Zhong-Kun Hu, Visiting Professor, 2005 Melissa Tong, undergraduate senior thesis, 2005 Jason Yu-Hene Siu, undergraduate senior thesis and employee, 2005 Janelle Clausen, undergraduate senior thesis and employee, 2004 Dr. Michael K. Bantel, Ph.D. thesis and postdoc, 2001

Research Program
(This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. 0404514 and 0701707)

The UCI Gravity Lab uses torsion pendulums operating at cryogenic temperature to perform tests of Newtonian gravity, the equivalence principle, and searches for new forces. The program includes:

Remote Experimental Site

The present apparatus was designed, constructed and tested at UC Irvine, and is operating at a remote underground site near Richland, Washington. The laboratory is prepared in a former Nike missile bunker on the Department of Energy's Hanford Site, and is a close neighbor of the CalTech-MIT LIGO gravity wave observatory. 

The site has numerous advantages.  Located on the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve it is far from and closed to public access, minimizing cultural noise sources. The semi-arid desert's minimal rainfall reduces the variations in mass distribution due to groundwater.  Being on the slopes of Rattlesnake Mountain, a 3630 foot elevation treeless basalt mountain, it is in a region of unusually low microseismic background noise. 

Publications

2007 "Gravitational Physics at BGPL", PDF (238kB)
P.E.Boynton, R.M.Bonicalzi, A.M.Kalet, A.M.Kleczewski, J.K.Lingwood, K.J. McKenney, M.W. Moore, J.H.Steffen, E.C. Berg, W.D. Cross, R.D.Newman, R.E.Gephart. New Astronomy Reviews 51, 334 (2007).
Copyright (2007) Elsevier. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and Elsevier.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ New Astronomy Reviews Vol.51, Issue 3-4,p334].

200? "Planned Tests of the Equivalence Principle with a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (4212 kB)
E.C.Berg, W.D.Cross, R.D.Newman, P.E.Boynton, M.W.Moore, J.H.Steffen,
accepted for publication in the text "Testing the Equivalence Principle on Ground and in Space";
in the Lecture Notes of Physics series published by Springer,
eds. C.Lämmerzahl, C.W.F.Everitt and R.Ruffini
This article has been submitted to Springer. After it is published, it will be found at ( Springer).

2005 "Laboratory Tests of Gravitational Physics Using a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (6150 kB) 
E.C.Berg, M.K.Bantel, W.D.Cross, T.Inoue, R.D.Newman, J.H.Steffen, M.W.Moore, P.E.Boynton,
in Proceedings of the 10th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, Rio de Janeiro 2003.
eds. M.N. Novello and S.P. Bergliaffa, World Scientific, pp. 994-1010 (2005).
Copyright (2006) World Scientific. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and World Scientific.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ISBN 981-256-667-8].

2004 "Progress in the Measurement of the Gravitational Constant Using a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (125 kB)
E.C.Berg, M.K.Bantel, R.D.Newman,
in Proceedings of the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements, London 2004, 2pp. abstract.
Copyright (2004) National Physics Laboratory, London, UK. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and National Physics Laboratory.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ NPL Store: CPEM 2004].

2002 "A Measurement of the Gravitational Constant Using a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (515 kB)
M.K.Bantel, E.C.Berg, R.D.Newman,
in Proceedings of the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements, Ottawa 2002, pp. 146-147.
Copyright (2002) IEEE. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and IEEE.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ ISBN: 0780372433].

2002 "Determining the Gravitational Constant using a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (249 kB)
M.K.Bantel and R.D.Newman,
in Proceedings of the 9th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, Rome 2000.
eds. V.G. Gurzadyan, R.T.Jantzen, R.Ruffini, World Scientific, pp.1769-1770 (2002).
Copyright (2002) World Scientific. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and World Scientific.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ ISBN 981-238-010-8].

2001 "Prospects for Terrestrial Equivalence Principle Tests with a Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum", PDF (130 kB)
Riley Newman, Class. Quantum Grav. 18, 2407 (2001).
Copyright (2001) Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Institute of Physics.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Class. Quantum Grav. 18, 2407 (2001)].

2000 "High precision measurement of torsion fiber internal friction at cryogenic temperatures", PDF (811 kB)
M.K.Bantel and R.D.Newman, Journal of Alloys and Compounds 310, 233 (2000).
Copyright (2000) Elsevier. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and Elsevier.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Journal of Alloys and Compounds 310, 233 (2000)].

2000 "A Cryogenic Torsion Pendulum: Progress Report", PDF (570 kB)
M.K.Bantel and R.D.Newman, Class. Quantum Grav. 17, 2313 (2000).
Copyright (2000) Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Institute of Physics.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Class. Quantm Grav. 17, 2313 (2000)].

1999 "On determining G using a cryogenic torsion pendulum", PDF (313 kB)
R.D.Newman and M.K.Bantel, Meas. Sci. Technol. 10, 445 (1999).
Copyright (1999) Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
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The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Meas. Sci. Technol. 10, 445 (1999)].

1996 "Future torsion balances for gravitation experiments: what are their limits?", PDF (411 kB)
R.D.Newman, M.Bantel, M.Beilby, N.Krishnan, E.Siragusa, P.E.Boynton, and A.Goodson,
in Proceedings of the 7th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity,
Jantzen R., Mac Keiser G., and Ruffini R. eds., World Scientific, 1619 (1996a).
Copyright (1996) World Scientific. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
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The following article appeared in and may be found at [ ISBN 9810220642].

1996 "Prospects for Gravitational Physics Experiments with Cryogenic Torsion Balances", PDF (237 kB)
R.D. Newman, M.K. Bantel and Z.R. Wang,
in Proceedings of the 31st Rencontre de Moriond, Les Arcs 1996:
"Dark Matter in Cosmology, Quantum Measurements, and Experimental Gravitation"
R. Ansari, Y. Giraud-Heraud, J.T. Thanh Van eds., Editions Frontieres, 409 (1996).
Copyright (1996) Editions Frontieres/EDP Sciences. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Editions Frontieres/EDP Sciences.
The following article appeared in and may be inquired after at [ ISBN 2-86332-203-6].

1990 "Search for an intermediate-range composition-dependent force coupling to N-Z", PDF (1191 kB)
P.G.Nelson, D.M.Graham, and R.D.Newman, Phys. Rev. D42, 963 (1990).
Copyright (1990) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics.
The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Phys. Rev. D42, 963 (1990)].

1985 "Experimental tests of the gravitational inverse-square law for mass separations from 2 to 105 cm", PDF (1114 kB)
J.K.Hoskins, R.D.Newman, R.Spero, and J.Schultz, Phys. Rev. D32, 3084, (1985)
Copyright (1985) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only.
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The following article appeared in and may be found at [ Phys. Rev. D32, 3084, (1985)].

Some Gravity Experiments Elsewhere