RUI: Search for Anomalous Spin Interactions with Atomic Comagnetometers

RUI：利用原子余磁强计寻找反常自旋相互作用

• 批准号: 1307507
• 负责人: Derek Kimball
• 金额: $ 29.99万
• 依托单位: California State University, East Bay Foundation, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1307507&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Search; Anomalous; Spin; Interactions

Our research program encompasses two different projects. The first project is an experimental search for a long-range interaction between atomic spins and the mass of the Earth. Such an interaction could arise due to a heretofore undiscovered "fifth force" or if gravity, as opposed to being a purely tensor interaction as assumed in general relativity, has a scalar/pseudoscalar component. Recent theoretical work has shown that such interactions could be the cause of the accelerating expansion of the universe, commonly attributed to dark energy. Our experiment seeks to detect this effect by simultaneously measuring the spin precession of two isotopes of rubidium using laser spectroscopy. Our experiment aims to improve experimental sensitivity to long-range spin-mass interactions by 1-3 orders of magnitude. Our second project focuses on development of a prototype sensor for the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics (GNOME), an array of geographically separated, time-synchronized ultrasensitive atomic comagnetometers that will search for correlated transient signals heralding new physics. The GNOME would be sensitive to nuclear and electron spin couplings to various exotic particles and fields. To date, no such search has ever been carried out, making the GNOME a novel experimental window on new physics. A specific, feasible example of new physics detectable with the GNOME, presently unconstrained by astrophysical observations and laboratory experiments, is a network of domain walls of light pseudoscalar fields.Our present understanding of fundamental physics is confronted by a number of deep mysteries: the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, the nature of dark energy, and the nature of dark matter. Our experiments, conducted in laboratories on Earth, use precise measurements of atomic spins to test several hypotheses that might explain these mysteries. It has been proposed that if our present theory of gravity is incomplete, additional components of gravity could both generate the dark energy pushing the universe apart and produce an excess of matter over antimatter after the Big Bang. These additional components of gravity would also cause atomic spins to precess in the Earth's gravitational field, the effect for which our experiment will search. A possible explanation of dark matter is a network of invisible galactic-scale "domain walls" that store considerable mass and energy. These invisible domain walls would exert a small torque on atomic spins that could be detected when the Earth passes through a wall. We are building a prototype sensor sensitive to such torques from domain wall-crossing events. An array of time-synchronized sensors based on our prototype will search for transient signals of astrophysical origin heralding such new physics. Our research is being carried out at a public undergraduate institution with a diverse student body, providing hands-on experience in state-of-the-art experimental physics to many undergraduate students (including a significant number of women and underrepresented minorities).

我们的研究计划包括两个不同的项目。 第一个项目是对原子自旋与地球质量之间的长程相互作用进行实验研究。 这种相互作用可能是由于迄今为止尚未发现的“第五力”而产生的，或者如果重力具有标量/伪标量分量，而不是广义相对论中假设的纯张量相互作用。 最近的理论工作表明，这种相互作用可能是宇宙加速膨胀的原因，通常归因于暗能量。我们的实验试图通过使用激光光谱同时测量两种铷同位素的自旋进动来检测这种效应。我们的实验旨在将长程自旋质量相互作用的实验灵敏度提高 1-3 个数量级。 我们的第二个项目重点是为奇异物理光磁力计全球网络 (GNOME) 开发原型传感器，这是一组地理上分离的、时间同步的超灵敏原子共磁力计，将搜索预示着新物理的相关瞬态信号。 GNOME 对核和电子自旋与各种奇异粒子和场的耦合敏感。迄今为止，还没有进行过此类搜索，这使得 GNOME 成为新物理学的新颖实验窗口。 GNOME 可以探测到的新物理学的一个具体、可行的例子是光赝标量场的畴壁网络，目前不受天体物理观测和实验室实验的限制。我们目前对基础物理学的理解面临着许多深刻的谜团：宇宙物质-反物质不对称性的起源、暗能量的本质和暗物质的本质。 我们在地球实验室进行的实验利用原子自旋的精确测量来测试可能解释这些谜团的几种假设。 有人提出，如果我们目前的引力理论不完整，那么引力的附加成分既可能产生将宇宙推开的暗能量，也可能在大爆炸后产生超过反物质的物质。 这些额外的引力分量也会导致原子自旋在地球引力场中进动，这是我们的实验将要寻找的效果。对暗物质的一种可能的解释是一个由不可见的银河尺度“畴壁”组成的网络，它存储着相当大的质量和能量。 这些看不见的磁畴壁会对原子自旋施加一个小扭矩，当地球穿过磁畴壁时，可以检测到该扭矩。 我们正在构建一种原型传感器，对跨域壁事件产生的扭矩敏感。 基于我们的原型的一系列时间同步传感器将搜索预示着这种新物理学的天体物理起源的瞬态信号。我们的研究是在一所拥有多元化学生群体的公立本科院校进行的，为许多本科生（包括大量女性和代表性不足的少数族裔）提供最先进的实验物理学的实践经验。

项目成果

Erratum: Constraints on long-range spin-gravity and monopole-dipole couplings of the proton [Phys. Rev. D 96 , 075004 (2017)]

勘误：对质子的长程自旋重力和单极-偶极耦合的约束[Phys。

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevd.107.019903
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Physical Review D
• 影响因子: 5
• 作者: Jackson Kimball, Derek F.;Dudley, Jordan;Li, Yan;Patel, Dilan;Valdez, Julian
• 通讯作者: Valdez, Julian