Experimental Tests of Local Cosmological Expansion Rates

Abstract

Cosmological expansion on a local scale is usually neglected in part due to its smallness, and in part due to components of bound systems (especially those bound by non-gravitational forces such as atoms and nuclei) not following the geodesics of the cosmological metric. However, it is interesting to ask whether or not experimental tests of cosmological expansion on a local scale (well within our own galaxy) might be experimentally accessible in some manner. We point out, using the Pioneer satellites as an example, that current satellite technology allows for this possibility within time scales of less than one human lifetime.

Presented on July 17, 2015 at the 14th Marcel Grossmann International Conference held at Sapienza, University of Rome, Italy (To appear in the Proceedings of the Conference); reformatted for the proceedings but with the same content