Probing dark energy with atom interferometry

Burrage, Clare; Copeland, Edmund J.; Hinds, E. A.

Abstract

© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab srl. Theories of dark energy require a screening mechanism to explain why the associated scalar fields do not mediate observable long range fifth forces. The archetype of this is the chameleon field. Here we show that individual atoms are too small to screen the chameleon field inside a large high-vacuum chamber, and therefore can detect the field with high sensitivity. We derive new limits on the chameleon parameters from existing experiments, and show that most of the remaining chameleon parameter space is readily accessible using atom interferometry.

Citation

Burrage, C., Copeland, E. J., & Hinds, E. A. (2015). Probing dark energy with atom interferometry. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2015(3), Article 042. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2015/03/042

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 24, 2015
• Publication Date: Mar 24, 2015
• Deposit Date: Apr 20, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 20, 2017
• Journal: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
• Electronic ISSN: 1475-7516
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2015
• Issue: 3
• Article Number: 042
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2015/03/042
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/746987
• Publisher URL: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1475-7516/2015/03/042/meta