Effects of a scalar fifth force on the dynamics of a charged particle as a new experimental design to test chameleon theories

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel laboratory experimental setup using charged particle dynamics in a magnetic field to detect a scalar fifth force induced by chameleon fields, potentially enabling new tests of such theories.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental design leveraging particle drift and induced currents to detect scalar fifth forces, specifically those from chameleon fields, in laboratory conditions.

Findings

Analytical and numerical estimates of particle drift due to the fifth force.

Discussion of the detectability of the induced current and particle trajectory shifts.

Analysis showing suppression of Newtonian gravity effects to isolate the fifth force.

Abstract

This article describes the dynamics of a charge particle in a electromagnetic field in presence of a scalar fifth force. Focusing to the fifth force that would be induced by a chameleon field, the profile of which can be designed properly in the laboratory, it draws its physical effects on the cyclotron motion of a particle in a static and uniform magnetic field. The fifth force induces a drift of the trajectory that is estimated analytically and compared to numerical computations for profiles motivated by the ones of a chameleon field within two nested cylinders. The magnitude of the effect and the detectability of this drift are discussed to argue that this may offer a new experimental design to test small fifth force in the laboratory. More important, at the macroscopic level it induces a current that can in principle also be measured, and would even allow one to access the transverse profile of the scalar field within the cavity. In both cases, aligning the magnetic field with the local gravity field suppresses the effects of Newtonian gravity that would be several order larger than the ones of the fifth force otherwise and the Newtonian gravity of the cavity on the particle is also argued to be negligible. Given this insight, this experimental set-up, with its two effects -- on a single particle and at the macroscopic level -- may require attention to demonstrate its actual feasability in the laboratory.