A Proposed Experimental Search for Chameleons using Asymmetric Parallel Plates

Abstract

Light scalar fields coupled to matter are a common consequence of theories of dark energy and attempts to solve the cosmological constant problem. The chameleon screening mechanism is commonly invoked in order to suppress the fifth forces mediated by these scalars, suficiently to avoid current experimental constraints, without fine tuning. The force is suppressed dynamically by allowing the mass of the scalar to vary with the local density. Recently it has been shown that near future cold atoms experiments using atom-interferometry have the ability to access a large proportion of the chameleon parameter space. In this work we demonstrate how experiments utilising asymmetric parallel plates can push deeper into the remaining parameter space available to the chameleon.