New Constraints on Yukawa-Type Interactions From the Casimir Effect

Abstract

Measurements of the Casimir force are used to obtain stronger constraints on the parameters of hypothetical interactions predicted in different unification schemes beyond the Standard Model. We review new strong constraints on the Yukawa-type interactions derived during the last two years from recent experiments on measuring the lateral Casimir force, Casimir force in configurations with corrugated boundaries and the Casimir-Polder force. Specifically, from measurements of the lateral Casimir force compared with the exact theory the strengthening of constraints up to a factor of 24 millions was achieved. We also discuss further possibilities to strengthen constraints on the Yukawa interactions from the Casimir effect.

Constraints on corrections to Newtonian gravity from two recent measurements of the Casimir interaction between metallic surfaces

“…In the last few decades corrections to Newton's law of gravitation and constraints on them have become the subject of considerable study (see the monograph [1] and reviews [2][3][4][5]). …”

Constraints on non-Newtonian gravity and light elementary particles from measurements of the Casimir force by means of a dynamic atomic force microscope

“…Keeping in mind that many of the experiments mentioned above were used, first, to make a selection between different theoretical approaches and, second, to constrain corrections to Newtonian gravity from the measure of agreement between the data and the predictions following from a selected approach, the constraints obtained were sometimes claimed to be of dubious merit [39]. This claim is questionable [40] because the difference between the excluded and confirmed theoretical approaches to the Casimir force cannot be modeled by the correction to Newtonian gravity of Yukawa type. It would be desirable, however, to have an independent confirmation of the previously obtained constraints that is not connected with a selection between different competing models of the Casimir force.…”

Stronger constraints on an axion from measuring the Casimir interaction by means of a dynamic atomic force microscope

“…We also emphasize that the difference F ′ C,p − F ′ C,D cannot be approximated either by the interaction due to two-axion exchange or by the hypothetical Yukawa-type interaction [33][34][35][36][37][38]. Moreover, even if any other compensating interaction due to some unknown agent for Au-Au test bodies, it would only increase the deviations between experiment and theory for Ni-Ni test bodies and vice versa.…”

“…[32] and Refs. [33][34][35][36][37][38] for the most recent results). The Yukawatype correction terms to Newtonian gravity arise either due to exchange of light scalar particles between atoms of test bodies or from extra-dimensional physics with low-energy compactification scale [39].…”