CAREER: Searching for New Physics from a Dark Sector Using Optically Levitated Microspheres

天体物理学观察表明，宇宙中的大部分物质由暗物质组成。确定暗物质的本质是基础物理学未来几年的中心目标。这个奖项为开发一套新的技术提供了支持，通过观察暗物质相互作用下可能存在的新力来搜索暗物质。如果存在，这些新的力可能会导致正常物质的电磁相互作用产生微小但可观察到的偏差。这里计划的技术将使新的暗物质搜索成为可能，这在很大程度上是对现有搜索的补充。相对于现有最好的实验室限制，这些搜索将提供超过一个数量级的灵敏度提高，以一个有良好动机的暗物质模型类别。由于没有单一的搜索可以探测所有可行的暗物质模型，因此可能需要各种各样的互补技术来确定暗物质的本质或完全限制其特性。该奖项将为纽黑文和耶鲁大学社区提供与该研究的科学和技术方面相关的教育机会。特别是，科学之路项目服务于纽黑文当地的学区，反映了该地区公立学校的多样性。通过该奖项支持的活动，来自物理和stem基础领域中代表性不足的群体的初高中学生将有机会了解这项研究的物理和技术。一种新型的基于高真空光悬浮介质微球的力传感器将用于研究这种新力的影响。这些技术可以探测到小于10^-18 N的牛顿力作用在纳克大小的物体上。在这项工作的过程中，将开发一个优化的实验装置，用于在亚毫米距离上搜索库仑定律的偏差，这将使搜索质量在0.1 meV到1 eV之间的暗光子介导的新相互作用成为可能。此外，同样的力传感器可以用于搜索“毫荷粒子”，它具有微小的分数电荷（q 1e）。在某些暗物质模型中，这种粒子可能在早期宇宙中产生，并与原子形成稳定的束缚状态，可以在今天的陆地物质中寻找。

Astrophysical observations indicate that the majority of the matter in the universe consists of dark matter. Identifying the nature of dark matter is a central goal of fundamental physics in the coming years. This award provides support to develop a novel set of techniques to search for dark matter by observing the possible presence of new forces under which dark matter interacts. If present, these new forces could lead to small, but observable, deviations in the electromagnetic interactions of normal matter. The techniques planned here will enable novel searches for dark matter that are largely complementary to existing searches. These searches will provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity to a well-motivated class of dark matter models, relative to the best existing laboratory constraints. Since no single search can probe all viable dark matter models, a wide variety of complementary techniques will likely be needed to identify the nature of dark matter or fully constrain its properties.This award will provide educational opportunities related to the scientific and technical aspects of this research to the New Haven and Yale University communities. In particular, the Pathways to Science program serves the local school districts in New Haven and reflects the diversity of the public schools in this area. Through the activities supported by this award, middle and high school students from groups that are underrepresented in physics and STEM-based fields will have the opportunity to learn about the physics and techniques underlying this research. A new class of force sensors based on optically levitated dielectric microspheres in high vacuum will be used to search for the effects of such new forces. These techniques can allow the detection of Newtonian forces smaller than 10^-18 N acting on nanogram-sized objects. An experimental apparatus optimized for searches for deviations from Coulomb's law at sub-mm distances will be developed in the course of this work, which will enable a search for new interactions mediated by dark photons with masses between 0.1 meV and 1 eV. In addition, the same force sensors can be used to search for "milli-charged particles," which have tiny fractional electric charges (q 1 e). In certain dark matter models, such particles could have been produced in the early universe and formed stable bound states with atoms that can be searched for in terrestrial matter today.