Stronger constraints for nanometer scale Yukawa-type hypothetical interactions from the new measurement of the Casimir force

TL;DR

This paper refines constraints on hypothetical Yukawa-type forces at nanometer scales by analyzing Casimir force measurements, accounting for corrections, and setting new, stronger experimental limits.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed calculation of hypothetical forces including all relevant corrections for a specific experimental setup, leading to significantly improved constraints.

Findings

New constraints are up to 140 times stronger than previous limits.

Corrections due to surface distortions are crucial at nanometer scales.

Proposals are discussed to further improve these constraints.

Abstract

We consider the Casimir force including all important corrections to it for the configuration used in a recent experiment employing an atomic force microscope. We calculate the long-range hypothetical forces due to the exchange of light and massless elementary particles between the atoms constituting the bodies used in the experiment --- a dielectric plate and a sphere both covered by two thin metallic layers. The corrections to these forces caused by the small surface distortions were found to be essential for nanometer Compton wave lengthes of hypothetical particles. New constraints for the constants of Yukawa-type interactions are obtained from the fact that such interactions were not observed within the limits of experimental accuracy. They are stronger up to 140 times in some range than the best constraints known up date. Different possibilities are also discussed to strengthen the obtained constraints in several times without principal changes of the experimental setup.