Probing Dark Energy with Atom Interferometry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that atom interferometry can effectively detect chameleon fields related to dark energy, providing new experimental limits and opening avenues for probing these elusive scalar fields.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that individual atoms can detect chameleon fields in high-vacuum chambers and derives new experimental constraints on dark energy models.

Findings

Atoms are too small to screen chameleon fields, enabling high-sensitivity detection.

Existing experiments set new limits on chameleon parameters.

Most of the remaining parameter space is accessible via atom interferometry.

Abstract

Theories of dark energy require a screening mechanism to explain why the associated scalar fields do not mediate observable long range fifth forces. The archetype of this is the chameleon field. Here we show that individual atoms are too small to screen the chameleon field inside a large high-vacuum chamber, and therefore can detect the field with high sensitivity. We derive new limits on the chameleon parameters from existing experiments, and show that most of the remaining chameleon parameter space is readily accessible using atom interferometry.