Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 29: Precision Measurements and Metrology (Atom Interferometry) (joint session Q/A)
A 29.1: Group Report
Wednesday, March 7, 2018, 14:00–14:30, K 2.013
Probing the forces of blackbody radiation and dark energy with matter waves — •Philipp Haslinger1, Vitkoria Xu1, Matt Jaffe1, Osip Schwartz1, Paul Hamilton2, Benjamin Elder3, Justin Khoury3, Matthias Sonnleitner5, Monika Ritsch-Marte4, Helmut Ritsch5, and Holger Müller1 — 1UC Berkeley, USA — 2UC Los Angeles, USA — 3UPenn, USA — 4Med-Uni Innsbruck, AUT — 5Uni Innsbruck, AUT
In this talk I will give an overview of our recent work using an optical cavity enhanced atom interferometer to sense with gravitational strength for fifths forces and for an on the first-place counterintuitive inertial property of blackbody radiation. Blackbody (thermal) radiation is emitted by objects at finite temperature with an outward energy-momentum flow, which exerts an outward radiation pressure. At room temperature e.g. a Cs atom scatters on average less than one of these photons every 108 years. Thus, it is generally assumed that any scattering force exerted on atoms by such radiation is negligible. However, particles also interact coherently with the thermal electromagnetic field and this leads to a surprisingly strong force acting in the opposite direction of the radiation pressure.
If dark energy, which drives the accelerated expansion of the universe, consists of a screened scalar field (e.g. chameleon models) it might be detectable as a "5th force" using atom interferometric methods. By sensing the gravitational acceleration of a 0.19kg in vacuum source mass, we reach a natural bound for cosmological motivated scalar field theories and were able to place tight constraints.