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Searching for screened scalar forces with long-baseline atom interferometers

Hannah Banks1,2,*, John Carlton3,4,†, Benjamin Elder5,‡, Thomas Hird6,7,§, and Christopher McCabe3,∥

  • *Contact author: hannah.banks@nyu.edu
  • †Contact author: john.carlton@desy.de
  • ‡Contact author: b.elder@imperial.ac.uk
  • §Contact author: t.m.hird@bham.ac.uk
  • ∥Contact author: christopher.mccabe@kcl.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 084047 – Published 22 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3486-4m4t

Abstract

Screened scalars are ubiquitous in many dark-sector models. They give rise to nontrivial fifth forces while evading experimental constraints through density-dependent screening mechanisms. We propose equipping a 10 m-scale long-baseline atom interferometer with an annular planar source mass inside the vacuum chamber to search for such screened fifth forces. Two key challenges arise: distinguishing the static fifth force from backgrounds, and isolating it from the plate’s Newtonian gravity. We introduce the Q-flip protocol, which alternates between interferometry sequences to induce controllable time-dependence, aiding signal extraction and detrending of transient noise. We further develop an in situ calibration procedure to characterize the plate’s Newtonian gravity and reach shot-noise-limited sensitivity. We show that our proposal could test theoretically motivated parameter space, advancing existing bounds on chameleon and symmetron screened scalar models by 1 to 1.5 orders of magnitude. Our proposal is directly applicable to forthcoming experiments, such as AION-10 or VLBAI, and is readily extensible to broader theoretical models and longer baselines.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 084047– Published 22 April, 2026
  • Received 19 December 2025
  • Accepted 16 March 2026
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