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arXiv · 2102.06848

Search for non-Newtonian interactions at micrometer scale with a levitated test mass

Charles P. Blakemore·Alexander Fieguth·Akio Kawasaki·Nadav Priel·Denzal Martin·Alexander D. Rider·Qidong Wang·Giorgio Gratta
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Abstract

We report on a search for non-Newtonian forces that couple to mass, with a characteristic scale of ${\sim}10~μ$m, using an optically levitated microsphere as a precision force sensor. A silica microsphere trapped in an upward-propagating, single-beam, optical tweezer is utilized to probe for interactions sourced from a nanofabricated attractor mass with a density modulation brought into close proximity to the microsphere and driven along the axis of periodic density in order to excite an oscillating response. We obtain force sensitivity of ${\lesssim}10^{-16}~\rm{N}/\sqrt{\rm{Hz}}$. Separately searching for attractive and repulsive forces results in the constraint on a new Yukawa interaction of $|α| \gtrsim 10^8$ for $λ> 10~μ$m. This is the first test of the inverse-square law using an optically levitated test mass of dimensions comparable to $λ$, a complementary method subject to a different set of systematic effects compared to more established techniques.

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Charles P. Blakemore, Alexander Fieguth, Akio Kawasaki, Nadav Priel, Denzal Martin, Alexander D. Rider, Qidong Wang, Giorgio Gratta. 2021-10-26. Search for non-Newtonian interactions at micrometer scale with a levitated test mass. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.104.l061101

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