Speaker
Description
If you need an abstract, here is one:
Screened scalars are ubiquitous in many dark-sector models. They give rise to nontrivial fifth forces while evading experimental constraints through density-dependent screening mechanisms. We propose equipping a 10 m-scale long-baseline atom interferometer with an annular planar source mass inside the vacuum chamber to search for such screened fifth forces. Two key challenges arise: distinguishing the static fifth force from backgrounds, and isolating it from the plate’s Newtonian gravity. We introduce the Q-flip protocol, which alternates between interferometry sequences to induce controllable time-dependence, aiding signal extraction and detrending of transient noise. We further develop an in situ calibration procedure to characterize the plate’s Newtonian gravity and reach shot-noise-limited sensitivity. We show that our proposal could test theoretically motivated parameter space, advancing existing bounds on chameleon and symmetron screened scalar models by 1 to 1.5 orders of magnitude.