Seminars & Events

Physics Division Astrophysics Luncheon
"How dark is dark energy? A laboratory search for couplings between photons and chameleon dark energy"

DATE: August 4, 2011
TIME: 12:00 PM - 12:00 AM
SPEAKER: Amol Upadhye, Director\'s Postdoctoral Fellow
LOCATION: Cafeteria, Private Dining Rooms A&B, Argonne National Laboratory

Description:
Dark energy can differ from the cosmological constant, the simplest model for the cosmic acceleration, either by evolving with time or by coupling to known particles. Coupled theories typically invoke a screening mechanism, such as the chameleon mechanism, to explain tight constraints on fifth forces and the evolution of fundamental constants locally. I will discuss the GammeV-CHASE experiment, conducted last year at Fermilab, which was designed to produce, trap, and detect photon-coupled chameleon dark energy. GammeV-CHASE has improved constraints on photon-chameleon couplings by orders of magnitude and has ruled out a range of models at the dark energy scale.

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