Bremen 2017 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 9: Experimentelle Tests 2

GR 9.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 15, 2017, 16:50–17:10, SFG 0140

A laser actuated cantilever to search for deviations from gravity in the nanometre length scale — •Helena Schmidt, Lars Andresen, Helmut Wolff, and Ludger Koenders — Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig

Although gravity has been well tested on several length scales, some unified theories predict deviations for the region below 1 mm. Some of the newer theories are the Domestic Axion hypothesis by Dvali and Funcke and a ghost-free quantum gravity by Edholm et al. (2016).

We present a method to search for such deviations in the nanometre length scale. Below 1 µm, the electrostatic and the Casimir force are by some magnitudes stronger than the gravitational force. To distinguish these forces, we designed a new cantilever made of fused silica. Utilizing the cantilever with the frequency modulation AFM technique it is feasible to measure these forces with sufficient accuracy to set new constraints for possible deviations of gravity. We are going to present first experimental results.