Probing New Intra-Atomic Force with Isotope Shifts: A Neat Thing to Do

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel atomic spectroscopy method using isotope shifts to detect very weakly interacting light bosons, highlighting potential violations of linear relations as indicators of new physics.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach employing atomic clock isotope shifts to probe for weakly interacting light bosons, expanding the toolkit for new physics searches.

Findings

Estimated effects under simple assumptions

Identified potential violations of isotope shift linearity

Discussed discrepancies with previous studies

Abstract

We discuss a new method to search for a new very weakly interacting light boson with extremely precise atomic spectroscopy, namely, the atomic clock. The contribution of the new physics may appear as the violation of a linear relation of the isotope shift. We evaluated this effect with some simple assumptions. Since the results still have disagreements with works by the other group, we briefly mention some points which should be improved in the future.