Abstract
Several extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics, including light dark matter candidates and unification theories predict deviations from Newton’s law of gravitation. For macroscopic distances, the inverse-square law of gravitation is well confirmed by astrophysical observations and laboratory experiments. At micrometer and shorter length scales, however, even the state-of-the-art constraints on deviations from gravitational interaction, whether provided by neutron scattering or precise measurements of forces between macroscopic bodies, are currently many orders of magnitude larger than gravity itself. Here we show that precision spectroscopy of weakly bound molecules can be used to constrain non-Newtonian interactions between atoms. A proof-of-principle demonstration using recent data from photoassociation spectroscopy of weakly bound Yb2 molecules yields constraints on these new interactions that are already close to state-of-the-art neutron scattering experiments. At the same time, with the development of the recently proposed optical molecular clocks, the neutron scattering constraints could be surpassed by at least two orders of magnitude.
Highlights
Several extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics, including light dark matter candidates and unification theories predict deviations from Newton’s law of gravitation
Experimental bounds on hypothetical nanometer range forces could help verify several extensions to the Standard Model, including grand unification theories[1,2], light dark matter models[3] and extradimensional theories aimed at solving the hierarchy problem[4,5,6]
Purely electrostatic model of the long range interaction that lacks quantum electrodynamic (QED) and relativistic corrections, our model still reproduces the positions of near-threshold bound states in the Yb2 molecule to ≈30 kHz
Summary
Received: 18 June 2019 Accepted: 28 September 2019 Published online: 15 October 2019. A proof-of-principle demonstration using recent data from photoassociation spectroscopy of weakly bound Yb2 molecules yields constraints on these new interactions that are already close to state-of-the-art neutron scattering experiments. We propose to search for new gravitylike forces in long range atomic interactions using high precision spectroscopy of weakly bound ultracold molecules. The measured binding energy range of −1922 to −3.7 MHz corresponds to classical outer turning points in between R = 2.3 and R = 6.5 nm (Fig. 2a) At these internuclear distances the atomic potential is dominated by the long range R−6 van der Waals interaction. Purely electrostatic model of the long range interaction that lacks quantum electrodynamic (QED) and relativistic corrections, our model still reproduces the positions of near-threshold bound states in the Yb2 molecule to ≈30 kHz
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
