Phenomenology of antigravity in N=2,8 supergravity

Abstract

$N=2,8$ supergravity predicts antigravity (gravivector and graviscalar) fields in the graviton supermultiplet. Data on the binary pulsar PSR 1913+16, tests of the equivalence principle and searches for a fifth force yield an upper bound of order 1 meter (respectively, 100 meters) on the range of the gravivector (respectively, graviscalar) interaction. Hence these fields are not important in non-relativistic astrophysics (for the weak-field limit of $N=2,8$ supergravity) but can play a role near black holes and for primordial structures in the early universe of a size comparable to their Compton wavelengths.