Rotating superconductors. A dead end?

First time I heard about these, was back in 2006. And it seemed promising. It is a simple concept: Einstein says energy or matter warps spacetime. Why don't we modify matter in order to alter somehow spacetime?

Obviously, harvesting energy as I have pointed out previously is not going to be enough.

So, is it possible to have a "weird" state of matter which gives us more juice for warping porpuses? The idea is quite attractive, because Einstein was an open enemy of quantum theory, and this branch of physics has evolved a lot since Einstein's first days.

 

Experimental ARC Seibersdorf 2006 setup (photo from ESA web)

It was no a new idea in 2006, anyway. Prior to ESA related experiments, back in the shining 90's, a russian professor claimed something quite similar, but his results were, after some analysis and checkings, rebuttable.

The fact is if you expect to be a respectable scientist, you just need to be crazy or having a balls of steel in order to defying mainstream physics. Third option is being a con man, but let's be optimistic about things for a moment and check what a discovery like that would require in order of being credible.

• It should be an experiment sponsored by a research institution with prestige.
• It has to have basis on previous data or theories, or at least have its own math basis in order to explain what is happening.
• It must be plausible, even if it's out of mainstream scientific knowledge. If not, experimental data must be conclusive and solid as rock.
• It must be reproductible and data should be comparable.

After reading a couple of papers about the actual experiment -the theory, and the experimental setup-, three of these conditions were accomplished, so it seemed promising.

The experiment, by the way, claimed it has detected accelerations in radial and tangential accelerometers in close vicinity of a rotating ring in superconducting state. The theory behind this is grativomagnetism, something which actually exists and has been detected as GR predicts -Gravity Probe B experiment is amazing, check it out.

The effect measured was a lot of orders of magnitude out of GR theory. Not enough for a "normal world" application but an important signal about something interesting could happen.

Paper figure where acceleration (black noisy pikes) is detected when rotating acceleration (red step) is applied.

But, summarizing, in the aftermath I found two independet experiments which looked like a conclusive rebuttal:

• The experiment was replicated in 2007 with a huge laser gyro, which should have presented a higher sensibility than mechanical accelerometers used in 2006. It claimed, as far as I understand, it doesn't detect frame dragging effect.
• Bose-Einstein condensate properties were used in a free fall tower as a measurement enhancement for gravity readings -which could mean, equivalence principle doesn't seem bothered by low energy matter states, which means matter doesn't change as much as needed to do anything GR related under low temperatures.

Did the researchers at ARC Seibersdorf desist? Well, apparently they didn't.

Several works have been released since 2006 -Dr. Tajmar is quite an active researcher. This paper, for instance, points out their previous theoretical model -based in achieving superconductor state and something called Cooper pair generation-, could be wrong, but it says also something actually is happening. The experiment is repeated with laser gyros, and again something seemed detected.

But I understand Tajmar paper also says Graham's paper -the rebuttal I mentioned the first-, detects frame dragging effect when it didn't -maybe other paper I don't have access to or something I'm missing in explanations.

Last Tajmar's paper I have noticed describes an actual coupling between grativy and electromagnetism, under weak field approach, something which I would like to believe, but gives me an unconfortable no-trust sensation. I'll keep looking for more info about this, in order to confirm if it is -as it really looks like- a dead end.

Truth must be said, I was going to consider rotating superconductors a "dead end" in the beginning -I didn't have the last news about the subject-, but a last moment search have leaded me to use a "to be continued..." at the end until I figure out a conclusion.

So... "to be continued"...