Gravitomagnetic Flux Quantization in superconductors and a Method for the Experimental Detection of Gravitomagnetism in the Terrestrial Laboratory

Abstract

It is extraordinarely difficult to detect the extremely weak gravitomagnetic (GM) field of even as large a body as the earth. To detect the GM field, the gravitational analog of an ordinary magnetic field, in a modest terrestrial laboratory should be that much more difficult. Here we show, however, that for certain superconductor configuration and topologies, it should be possible to detect a measurable GM field in the terrestrial laboratory, by using the properties of superconductors imposed by quantum mechanical requirements. In particular, we show that the GM Flux should be quantized in a superconductor with non-vanishing genus, just like the ordinary magnetic flux. And this magnetically induced, quantized GM Flux, for sufficiently high quantum number and favorable geometries, should be distinguishable from the effects produced by an ordinary magnetic field.