The Tajmar effect from quantised inertia

School of Marine Science and Engineering (SMSE), University of Plymouth - Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK, EU

^a mike.mcculloch@plymouth.ac.uk

Received: 19 May 2011
Accepted: 16 June 2011

Abstract

The Tajmar anomaly is an unexplained acceleration observed by gyroscopes close to, but isolated from, rotating rings cooled to 5 K. The observed ratio between the gyroscope and ring accelerations was 3±1.2×10^{− 8} for clockwise rotations and about half this size for anticlockwise ones. Here, this anomaly is predicted using a new model that assumes that the inertial mass of the gyroscope is caused by Unruh radiation that appears as the ring and the fixed stars accelerate relative to it, and that this radiation is subject to a Hubble-scale Casimir effect. The model predicts that the sudden acceleration of the ring causes a slight increase in the inertial mass of the gyroscope, and, to conserve momentum the gyroscope must move with the ring with an acceleration ratio of 2.67±0.24×10^{− 8} for clockwise rotations and 1.34±0.12×10^{− 8} for anticlockwise ones, in agreement with the observations. The model predicts that in the southern hemisphere the anomaly should be larger for anticlockwise rotations instead, and that with a significant reduction of the mass of the disc, the decay of the effect with vertical distance should become measurable.