Astronomical time-of-flight photon speedometer

A dual-band, fiber-optic, photon time-of-flight instrument was developed. Its design was optimized for measuring the velocity of visible photons emanating from relatively dim astronomical sources (apparent magnitude m > 12 ), such as distant galaxies and quasars. We report the first direct photon group velocity measurements for extragalactic objects. The photon group velocity is found to be 3.00 ± 0.03 × 1 0 8 m s − 1 and is invariant, within experimental error, over the range of redshifts measured ( 0 ≤ z ≤ 1.33 ). This measurement provides additional validation of general relativity and is consistent with the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker and hyperbolic anti-de Sitter metrics but not with the elliptical de Sitter metric.