INVERSE COMPTON TESTING OF FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND THE COSMIC BACKGROUND-RADIATION

The recent precise Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB) measure ments by COBE and other facilities can provide interesting possibiliti es for the experimental checking of some basic physical parameters. In this context the inverse Compton scattering of highly monochromatic a nd parallel electron beams on laser photons is proposed for testing sp ecial relativity and related basic principles. For CEBAF and SLC param eters, for example, one can expect a precision for the isotropy of the speed of light dc(theta)/c approximate to 10(-13) - 10(-14) and upper limit for the hypothetical fundamental length lambda(f) similar or eq ual to 10(-22) - 10(-23) cm. In particular, of special interest can be the checking of the isotropy of the speed of light with respect the d irection of the CMB dipole (a kind of Michelson-Morley experiment rela tive to the absolute ''rest'' coordinate system).