Improved constraints on non-Newtonian forces at 10 microns

By A. Geraci, Sylvia J. Smullin, D. Weld, J. Chiaverini, A. Kapitulnik. 2008

168 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Several recent theories suggest that light moduli or particles in ``large'' extra dimensions could mediate macroscopic forces exceeding gravitational strength at length scales below a millimeter. Such new forces can be parameterized as a Yukawa-type correction to the Newtonian potential of strength $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ relative to gravity and range $\ensuremath{\lambda}$. To extend the search for such new physics we have improved our apparatus utilizing cryogenic micro-cantilevers capable of measuring attonewton forces, which now includes a switchable magnetic force for calibration. Our most recent experimental constraints on Yukawa-type deviations from Newtonian gravity are more than 3 times as stringent as our previously published results and represent the best bound in the range of $5--15\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$, with a 95% confidence exclusion of forces with $|\ensuremath{\alpha}|g14,000$ at $\ensuremath{\lambda}=10\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee2aafd0fffab4d4f31e4e3b6e67bd1d3352298d

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Citations in the corpus

A review of short-range gravity experiments in the LHC era (2014, methodology): “Very high-precision experiments were performed (Figure 24) by the Stanford University group using cantilevers (Smullin et al. 2005, Geraci et al. 2008, Chiaverini et al. 2003).”
The landscape of QCD axion models (2020, background): “1mm [644, 645], so that this mechanism can yield axions lighter than expected only for relatively small values of the axion decay constant fa <∼ 3 · 10 GeV.”
The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment (2005, background): “ion-like interactions from electromagnetic and quantum mechanical (Casimir) eﬀects. No deviations from the inverse square law have been found to date at distances between tens of nanometers and 10 mm [237, 177, 176, 69, 236, 193, 4, 360, 157, 351, 39, 411, 200]. For a comprehensive review of both th”
Search for New Physics with Atoms and Molecules (2017, methodology): “Between 5 and 15 microns, the best constraint on a fifth force comes from measurements employing a ≈ 1 µg test mass attached to cryogenic microcantilever and a source mass with alternating 100 µmwide gold and silicon strips that is moved beneath the cantilever (Geraci et al., 2008).”