A Proposed Experimental Search for Chameleons using Asymmetric Parallel Plates

Abstract

Light scalar fields coupled to matter are a common consequence of theories of dark energy and attempts to solve the cosmological constant problem. The chameleon screening mechanism is commonly invoked in order to suppress the fifth forces mediated by these scalars, suficiently to avoid current experimental constraints, without fine tuning. The force is suppressed dynamically by allowing the mass of the scalar to vary with the local density. Recently it has been shown that near future cold atoms experiments using atom-interferometry have the ability to access a large proportion of the chameleon parameter space. In this work we demonstrate how experiments utilising asymmetric parallel plates can push deeper into the remaining parameter space available to the chameleon.

6 Pages, 4 Figures

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Atomic Interferometry Test of Dark Energy
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• Exact Solution for Chameleon Field, Self-Coupled Through the Ratra-Peebles Potential with n = 1 and Confined Between Two Parallel Plates
• Exact Solutions to Non-Linear Symmetron Theory II: One and Two Mirror Systems
• A general study of chameleon fifth force in gravity space experiments
• Constraining modified gravity with quantum optomechanics
• Dynamical Analysis of Screening in Scalar-Tensor Theory
• Detecting Domain Walls in Laboratory Experiments
• Fifth force induced by a chameleon field on nested cylinders
• Effects of a scalar fifth force on the dynamics of a charged particle as a new experimental design to test chameleon theories
• Particle level screening of scalar forces in 1+1 dimensions
• Testing screened scalar-tensor theories of gravity with atomic clocks
• Non-linear Phenomenology of Disformally Coupled Quintessence
• Quartic Chameleons: Safely Scale-Free in the Early Universe