We report a measurement of the local acceleration g with ultracold neutrons based on quantum states in the gravity potential of the Earth. The new method uses resonant transitions between the states ∣1>−>∣3> and for the first time between ∣1>−>∣4>. The measurements demonstrate that Newton's Inverse Square Law of Gravity is understood at micron distances at an energy level of 10−14 eV with gΔg=4×10−3. The results provide constraints on any possible gravity-like interaction at a micrometer interaction range. In particular, a dark energy candidate, the chameleon field is restricted to β<6.9×106 for n=2 (95\% C.L.).
@article{arxiv.1512.09134,
title = {A Gravity of Earth Measurement with a qBOUNCE Experiment},
author = {G. Cronenberg and H. Filter and M. Thalhammer and T. Jenke and H. Abele and P. Geltenbort},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.09134},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Proceedings of the EPS Conference on High Energy Physics 2015