Speaker
Giovanni Cantatore
(INFN Trieste)
Description
The KWISP opto-mechanical force sensor has been built and calibrated in the Trieste optics laboratory and is now under off-beam commissioning in CAST. It is designed to detect the pressure exerted by a flux of solar Chameleons on a thin (50 nm) silicon nitride micromembrane thanks to their direct coupling to matter. The membrane is placed inside a Fabry-Perot optical resonator excited at 1064 nm, and its displacements are monitored through the resonator characteristic frequencies. Displacements as little as 1e-15 m can be detected in 1 s, corresponding to a force sensitivity of < 1e-14 N. This sensitivity opens access to unexplored regions in the Chameleon parameter space, and may allow a first experimental glimpse at the nature of Dark Energy. Once installed on CAST, the KWISP force sensor will immediately exploit the flux focusing action of an X-Ray Telescope and the tracking capability to increase its sensitivity by a factor more than 100.
We will present the preliminary measurements done in Trieste, the current status and the near and long term perspectives for further extending the physics reach in the Dark Energy sector.
Primary author
Giovanni Cantatore
(INFN Trieste)
