Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2022
Volume 67, Number 3
Monday–Friday, March 14–18, 2022; Chicago
Session D13: Probing New Physics with Optomechanical SystemsInvited Session Live Streamed Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: DAMOP Chair: Andrew Geraci, Northwestern University Room: McCormick Place W-183A |
Monday, March 14, 2022 3:00PM - 3:36PM |
D13.00001: Gravitational coupling between millimetre-sized masses: prospects for a quantum Cavendish experiment Invited Speaker: Markus Aspelmeyer Earth-based experiments have been continuously increasing their sensitivity to gravity phenomena at laboratory scales. A yet unexplored frontier is the regime of microscopic source masses, which enables studies of fundamental interactions and provides a path towards exploring the quantum nature of gravity. We have recently demonstrated gravitational coupling between a test mass and a 90mg gold sphere, the smallest source mass to date in table-top gravity experiments. The miniaturized torsion balance measurement achieves a systematic accuracy of 3e-11 m/s2 and a statistical precision of 3e-12 m/s2. We expect that further improvements will enable the isolation of gravity as a coupling force for objects well below the Planck mass. This is a practical prerequisite for future “quantum Cavendish” experiments that aim to probe probe gravitational phenomena originating from quantum superposition states of a source-mass configuration. |
Monday, March 14, 2022 3:36PM - 4:12PM |
D13.00002: Prototype SuperfluidGravitational WaveDetector Invited Speaker: John P Davis We study a cross-shaped cavity filled with superfluid 4He as a prototype resonant-mass gravitational wave detector. Using a membrane and a re-entrant microwave cavity as a sensitive optomechanical transducer, we were able to observe the thermally excited high-Q acoustic modes of the helium at 20 mK temperature and achieved a strain sensitivity of 8 x 10-19 Hz-1/2 to gravitational waves. To facilitate the broadband detection of continuous gravitational waves, we tune the kilohertz-scale mechanical resonance frequencies up to 173 Hz/bar by pressurizing the helium. With reasonable improvements, this architecture will enable the search for GWs in the 1-30 kHz range, relevant for a number of astrophysical sources both within and beyond the Standard Model. |
Monday, March 14, 2022 4:12PM - 4:48PM |
D13.00003: Searches for Dark Matter with Optically Levitated Sensors Invited Speaker: David C Moore While astrophysical observations indicate that vast majority of the matter in the universe is dark matter, its detection in the laboratory remains a major outstanding challenge. The rapid development of optomechanical systems over the past few decades is now providing new tools for searching for dark matter. As such technologies reach quantum measurement regimes, they can enable new searches for extremely weakly coupled phenomena, beyond the sensitivity of known techniques. I will describe a first demonstration of a search for dark matter using an optically trapped nanogram mass sensor. This search already exceeds the sensitivity of even large underground detectors for certain classes of dark matter candidates, with only a few days of exposure. If a signal were detected, such sensors would also be able to correlate its direction with earth's motion through the galaxy, providing definitive confirmation of the astrophysical origin of the signal. Additional applications of this technology to search for dark matter candidates that may carry a small electric charge will also be described. |
Monday, March 14, 2022 4:48PM - 5:24PM |
D13.00004: Probing the dark sector with mechanical systems Invited Speaker: Swati Singh The coupling of normal, Standard Model matter with dark matter or energy sometimes manifests itself as a mechanical effect: strain, recoil kicks, or acceleration. Following a review of the expected mechanical signature, I will discuss why mechanical systems are well-suited to complement AMO and particle physics based searches for these astrophysical signals. Specifically, I will discuss the feasibility of searching for ultralight dark matter using various optomechanical systems. I will also show that current mechanical systems have the sensitivity to set new constraints on scalar field candidates for dark energy. Finally, I will briefly overview the promise of quantum noise limited detectors in the search for beyond the standard model physics. |
Monday, March 14, 2022 5:24PM - 6:00PM |
D13.00005: Probing into the gravity of quantum systems by levitated mechanics Invited Speaker: Hendrik Ulbricht We will report on our recent progress with experiments with trapped nano- and micro-particles, especially with Meissner-levitated ferromagnets above a type-1 superconductor. We find a system with ultralow mechanical damping showing great potential for sensing tiny forces and, apparently, independent from the standard quantum limit - which holds promise to detect record low magnetic fields and we discuss ideas for a ferromagnetic gyroscope, where the precession motional degree of freedom is used to sense tiny magnetic fields. We will further discuss how other rotational degrees of freedom can be used for inertial and force detection. We apply force noise measurements to bound collapse models to test the quantum superposition principle in the macroscopic domain of large-mass systems. We illustrate ideas to used levitated mechanical systems to probe into gravity interactions leading toward the experimental exploration of the interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity. We also illustrate ideas to probe into the physics of quantum field theory effects in non-inertial reference frames based on spinning micro-particles. |
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