Gravity resonance spectroscopy and dark energy symmetron fields

Tobias Jenke,Jakob Micko,Hartmut Abele,Mario Pitschmann,Joachim Bosina,René Sedmik

doi:10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00088-y

Tobias Jenke, Jakob Micko + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00088-y

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Abstract

Spectroscopic methods allow to measure energy differences with unrivaled precision. In the case of gravity resonance spectroscopy, energy differences of different gravitational states are measured without recourse to the electromagnetic interaction. This provides a very pure and background-free look at gravitation and topics related to the central problem of dark energy and dark matter at short distances. In this article, we analyse the effect of dark energy scalar symmetron fields, a leading candidate for a screened dark energy field, and place limits in a large volume of parameter space.

Highlights

This article focuses on acoustic Rabi- and Ramseytransitions between gravitational energy eigenstates of an ultra-cold neutron trapped above a flat neutron reflector in the gravity potential of the Earth
The method in use is Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy (GRS) [1], a method [1,2,3,4] developed by the qBounce collaboration
The energy difference between quantum states in the gravity potential can be related to the frequency of a mechanical modulator, in analogy to the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technique, where the Zeeman energy splitting of a magnetic moment in an outer magnetic field is connected to the frequency of a radio-frequency field

Summary

Introduction

The method in use is Gravity Resonance Spectroscopy (GRS) [1], a method [1,2,3,4] developed by the qBounce collaboration. The energy difference between quantum states in the gravity potential can be related to the frequency of a mechanical modulator, in analogy to the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technique, where the Zeeman energy splitting of a magnetic moment in an outer magnetic field is connected to the frequency of a radio-frequency field. We present the qBounce experiment and the application of Rabi and Ramsey spectroscopy to GRS in Sect. [8,9,10] In this presentation, we further analyse the effect of additional dark energy scalar symmetron fields [18], a leading candidate for a screened dark energy field, which has escaped experimental detection so far [4,14, 15] and [16]. For further information on exact symmetron solutions and neutron screening see Ref. [19]

Gravity resonance spectroscopy technique

Dark energy symmetron fields and restrictions from GRS