SOME COMMENTS ON A RELATIVISTIC FREQUENCY-SHIFT EXPERIMENT OF CHAMPENEY AND MOON

An experiment of Champeney and Moon for M-Ossbauer emission and absorption on a rotating device is discussed. They obtained a zero frequency shift for emitter and absorber at opposite ends of a rotor, which they concluded to be in accord with the requirements of special and general relativity. However, it is shown here that their experiment requires a null result if the Doppler shift be any function whatever of the speed of the absorber relative to the emitter, and of the angle between the absorber's velocity and the direction of the incident light. Consequently, the conclusion of Champeney and Moon is not really meaningful. Additionally, it is pointed out that if the frequency shift between relatively moving frames is in fact acceleration-dependent, then the experiment indicates that at the very most, the acceleration magnitude only can be relevant. © 1969, American Association of Physics Teachers. All rights reserved.