Abstract
A new technique to search for new scalar and tensor interactions at the submicrometer scale is presented. The technique relies on small shifts of nuclear lines produced by the coupling between matter and the nuclei in the source or absorber of a Mössbauer spectrometer. Remarkably, such energy shifts are rather insensitive to electromagnetic interactions that represent the largest background in searches for new forces using atomic matter. This is because nuclei are intrinsically shielded by the electron clouds. Additionally, electromagnetic interactions cause energy shifts by coupling to nuclear moments that are suppressed by the size of the nuclei, while new scalar interactions can directly affect these shifts. Finally, averaging over unpolarized nuclei, further reduces electromagnetic interactions. We discuss several possible configurations, using the traditional Mössbauer effect as well as nuclear resonant absorption driven by synchrotron radiation. For this purpose, we examine the viability of well-known Mössbauer nuclides along with more exotic ones that result in substantially narrower resonances. We find that the technique introduced here could substantially improve the sensitivity to a variety of new interactions and could also be used, in conjunction with mechanical force measurements, to corroborate a discovery or explore the new physics that may be behind a discovery.
- Received 18 October 2020
- Accepted 17 November 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.102.115031
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
synopsis
Finding New Forces with Old Techniques
Published 24 December 2020
Interactions predicted by beyond-standard-model theories could be detected using a variation on Mössbauer spectroscopy, according to a new proposal.
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