Ives–Stilwell experiment

The Ives–Stilwell experiment tested the contribution of relativistic time dilation to the Doppler shift of light. The result was in agreement with the formula for the transverse Doppler effect and was the first direct, quantitative confirmation of the time dilation factor. Since then many Ives–Stilwell type experiments have been performed with increased precision. Together with the Michelson–Morley and Kennedy–Thorndike experiments it forms one of the fundamental tests of special relativity theory. Other tests confirming the relativistic Doppler effect are the Mössbauer rotor experiment and modern Ives–Stilwell experiments. Both time dilation and the relativistic Doppler effect were predicted by Albert Einstein in his seminal 1905 paper. Einstein subsequently (1907) suggested an experiment based on the measurement of the relative frequencies of light perceived as arriving from a light source in motion with respect to the observer, and he calculated the additional Doppler shift due to time dilation. This effect was later called "transverse Doppler effect" (TDE), since such experiments were initially imagined to be conducted at right angles with respect to the moving source, in order to avoid the influence of the longitudinal Doppler shift. Eventually, Herbert E. Ives and G. R. Stilwell (referring to time dilation as following from the theory of Lorentz and Larmor) gave up the idea of measuring this effect at right angles. They used rays in longitudinal direction and found a way to separate the much smaller TDE from the much bigger longitudinal Doppler effect. The experiment was performed in 1938 and was reprised several times. Similar experiments were conducted several times with increased precision, for example, by Otting (1939), Mandelberg et al. (1962), Hasselkamp et al. (1979), and Botermann et al. Ives remarked that it is nearly impossible to measure the transverse Doppler effect with respect to light rays emitted by canal rays at right angles to the direction of motion of the canal rays (as it was considered earlier by Einstein), because the influence of the longitudinal effect can hardly be excluded.