Measurement of gravitational coupling between millimetre-sized masses

Tobias Westphal (), Hans Hepach, Jeremias Pfaff and Markus Aspelmeyer ()
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Tobias Westphal: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hans Hepach: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Jeremias Pfaff: University of Vienna
Markus Aspelmeyer: Austrian Academy of Sciences

Nature, 2021, vol. 591, issue 7849, 225-228

Abstract: Abstract Gravity is the weakest of all known fundamental forces and poses some of the most important open questions to modern physics: it remains resistant to unification within the standard model of physics and its underlying concepts appear to be fundamentally disconnected from quantum theory1–4. Testing gravity at all scales is therefore an important experimental endeavour5–7. So far, these tests have mainly involved macroscopic masses at the kilogram scale and beyond8. Here we show gravitational coupling between two gold spheres of 1 millimetre radius, thereby entering the regime of sub-100-milligram sources of gravity. Periodic modulation of the position of the source mass allows us to perform a spatial mapping of the gravitational force. Both linear and quadratic coupling are observed as a consequence of the nonlinearity of the gravitational potential. Our results extend the parameter space of gravity measurements to small, single source masses and low gravitational field strengths. Further improvements to our methodology will enable the isolation of gravity as a coupling force for objects below the Planck mass. This work opens the way to the unexplored frontier of microscopic source masses, which will enable studies of fundamental interactions9–11 and provide a path towards exploring the quantum nature of gravity12–15.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03250-7

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