Testing dark energy models with atom interferometry

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• Clare Burrage (Nottingham)
• Wednesday 10 July 2019, 13:00-14:00
• Physics East 217.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Giovanni Barontini.

The accelerated expansion of the universe motivates a wide class of scalar field theories that modify gravity on large scales. In regions where the General Relativity has been confirmed by experiment, such theories need a screening mechanism to suppress the new force. I will describe how theories with screening mechanisms can be tested in the laboratory, in particular with atom-interferometry experiments.

I will describe the results of a recent experiment in which we measured the acceleration of an atom toward a macroscopic test mass inside a high vacuum chamber, where the new force is unscreened in some theories. Our measurement shows that the attraction between atoms and the test mass does not differ appreciably from Newtonian gravity. This result places stringent limits on the free parameters in chameleon and symmetron theories of modified gravity.

This talk is part of the Cold atoms series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Bham Talks
• Cold Atoms
• Cold atoms
• Physics East 217
• What's on in Physics?

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