The Juno Mission as a Probe of Long-Range New Physics

TL;DR

This paper uses the Juno spacecraft's orbit around Jupiter to set new constraints on hypothetical long-range forces beyond the Standard Model, improving our understanding of possible fifth forces.

Contribution

It introduces the novel application of spacecraft orbital data to test fifth forces that do not violate the equivalence principle, providing new bounds on mediator mass.

Findings

Excluded fifth-force mediator mass around 10^{-14} eV at 95% confidence level.

Demonstrated the effectiveness of spacecraft orbit analysis in probing new physics.

Provided tighter constraints on non-gravitational interactions in the Jovian system.

Abstract

Orbits of celestial objects, especially the geocentric and heliocentric ones, have been well explored to constrain new long-range forces beyond the Standard Model (SM), often referred to as fifth forces. In this paper, for the first time, we apply the motion of a spacecraft around Jupiter to probe fifth forces that don't violate the equivalence principle. The spacecraft is the Juno orbiter, and ten of its early orbits already allow a precise determination of the Jovian gravitational field. We use the shift in the precession angle as a proxy to test non-gravitational interactions between Juno and Jupiter. Requiring that the contribution from the fifth force does not exceed the uncertainty of the precession shift inferred from data, we find that a new parameter space with the mass of the fifth-force mediator around $10^{-14}$ eV is excluded at 95% C.L.