Transient Equivalence-Principle Violation Bursts: Why Static Bounds Do Not Automatically Constrain Fast-Rising Events

Null results from modern equivalence-principle (EP) tests—including MICROSCOPE and decadesof lunar laser ranging (LLR)—severely constrain static or adiabatic violations of the universality of freefall. We accept these limits and note that they exclude any slow accumulation of a macroscopic EPviolating “charge” large enough to generate orbital anomalies. We then make a precise, model-agnosticpoint: published EP bounds are extracted by band-limited estimators (narrow-band demodulationand long-baseline orbital fitting). Consequently, they constrain specific temporal modes of an EPviolating signal, not automatically the maximum amplitude of an arbitrary high-frequency transient.We develop a minimal burst phenomenology: a transient differential acceleration ∆a(t) = ε(t)g withduration τ ≪ T and, in particular, the physically motivated case of zero net impulse Rε(t) dt = 0.In this class, the projection onto the standard LLR synodic EP channel is parametrically suppressedby powers of ωsynτ . The appropriate burst observable is the jerk janom ≃ ε˙ g, which can be largeeven when ε(t) remains small in narrow-band averages. We then connect this to geophysical forcing:a rapid, global change in effective body force produces broadband excitation of elastic modes. Weconclude that closing the “transient loophole” requires explicit burst searches in high-rate residualstreams and publication of duration-dependent burst bounds, rather than relying solely on static EPparameters.