New constraints on ultrashort-ranged Yukawa interactions from atomic force microscopy

Abstract

Models in which the gravitational and gauge interactions are unified at ~1 TeV lead to the possibility that large extra dimensions would produce Yukawa-type corrections to the Newtonian gravitational law at small distances. In some models with n = 3 extra dimensions, deviations from Newtonian gravity would occur at separations ~5 nm, a distance scale accessible to an atomic force microscope (AFM). Here we present constraints on the Yukawa corrections derived from the latest AFM Casimir force measurement by Mohideen, et al. which are up to 19 times stronger than those obtained from their previous experiment. We then discuss new designs for AFM experiments which have the potential to significantly improve upon these constraints.