Einstein Prize TalkExperimental Gravity: a high-sensitivity frontier of fundamental physics

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

Modern attempts to unify gravity with the rest of physics have opened the possibility that new gravitational and/or particle phenomena, hidden from us by their extreme feebleness, have gone undetected. The University of Washington Eöt-Wash group has developed ultra-sensitive torsion-balance technology to investigate this unexplored terrain. I will discuss the challenges, the new instrumentation and analysis techniques, and some of the results from this work. I will focus on tests of the weak equivalence principle (new interactions weaker than gravity, the gravitational properties of dark-matter and of anti-matter) and the study of gravity at separations smaller than the diameter of a human hair (could the extraordinary weakness of gravity be explained if some of string theories extra space dimensions were curled up at the sub-mm scale?).

–

Publication: "Search for an Intermediate Range Interaction," C.W. Stubbs, E.G. Adelberger, F.J.
Raab, J.H. Gundlach, B.R. Heckel, K.D. McMurry, H.E. Swanson, and R. Watanabe,
Physical Review Letters 58, 1070 (1987).

"Experimental Bounds on Interactions Mediated by Ultra{Low Mass Bosons," B.R.
Heckel, E.G. Adelberger, C.W. Stubbs, Y. Su, H.E. Swanson, G. Smith, and W.F.
Rogers, Physical Review Letters 63, 2705 (1989).

"Testing the Equivalence Principle in the Field of the Earth: Particle Physics at Mass
Scales Below 1 microeV?", E.G. Adelberger, C.W. Stubbs, B.R. Heckel, Y. Su, H.E. Swanson,
G. Smith, J.H. Gundlach, and W.F. Rogers, Physical Review D 42, 3267 (1990).

"Sub-millimeter test of the gravitational inverse-square law: A search for "large" extra
dimensions", C.D. Hoyle, U. Schmidt, B.R. Heckel, E.G. Adelberger, J.H. Gundlach,
D.J .Kapner, and H.E. Swanson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1418 (2001).

"Sub-millimeter test of the gravitational inverse-square law: A search for \large" extra
dimensions", C.D. Hoyle, U. Schmidt, B.R. Heckel, E.G. Adelberger, J.H. Gundlach,
D.J .Kapner, and H.E. Swanson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1418 (2001).

"Tests of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law at the Dark-Energy Length Scale",
D.J. Kapner, T.S. Cook, E.G. Adelberger, J.H. Gundlach, B.R. Heckel, C.D. Hoyle
and H.E. Swanson, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 021101 (2007).

"Torsion Balance Experiments: A Low-energy Frontier of Particle Physics", E.G. Adelberger,
J.H. Gundlach, B.R. Heckel, S. Hoedl and S. Schlamminger, Progress in Particle
and Nuclear Physics 62, 102 (2009).

"Torsion-balance tests of the weak equivalence principle", T. A. Wagner, S. Schlamminger,
J. H. Gundlach and E. G. Adelberger, Classical and Quantum Gravity 29,
184002 (2012).

"New Test of the Gravitational 1/r2 Law at Separations Down to 52 microm", J.G. Lee,
E.G. Adelberger, T.S. Cook, S.M. Fleischer and B.R. Heckel, Physical Review Letters
124 101101 (2020).

Presenters

  • Eric G Adelberger

    University of Washington

Authors

  • Eric G Adelberger

    University of Washington