Very Special Relativity in Accelerated Frames: Non-relativistic Effects in Gravitational Spectroscopy of Ultracold Neutrons

Alessandro Santoni, Enrique Muñoz, Hartmut Abele, Benjamin Koch

Published 2025-01-11Version 1

In this paper, we investigate the phenomenology of fermionic systems in uniform gravitational fields within the framework of Very Special Relativity (VSR). We especially focus on the case of gravitational spectroscopy with ultracold neutrons, explored in experiments like \emph{q}\textsc{Bounce}. Calculating the leading ($c^0$) and next-to-leading ($c^{-1}$) order corrections to the non-relativistic Hamiltonian in an accelerated frame, we derive the fermionic perturbed energy spectrum. At leading order, we do not find new non-trivial modifications, apart from a mass shift, confirming both the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass and particle-antiparticle sectors. The next-to-leading order, instead, introduces time-dependent anisotropic contributions depending on the preferred spatial direction from VSR, which can then be used to probe novel Lorentz-violating signatures. Using \emph{q}\textsc{Bounce} sensitivity as a benchmark, we suggest a first rough constraint for these effects. Finally, we propose alternative spin-flipping setups to better probe VSR signatures and foresee potential future research directions.