Experimental tests of the gravitational inverse-square law for mass separations from 2 to 105 cm

Details Experimental tests of the gravitational inverse-square law for mass separations from 2 to 105 cm Experimental tests of the gravitational inverse-square law for mass separations from 2 to 105 cm

Dec 1985

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1985phrvd..32.3084h&link_type=abstract

Physical Review D (Particles and Fields), Volume 32, Issue 12, 15 December 1985, pp.3084-3095

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Other Topics In General Relativity And Gravitation

Scientific paper

We report two experiments which test the inverse-square distance dependence of the Newtonian gravitational force law. One experiment uses a torsion balance consisting of a 60-cm-long copper bar suspended at its midpoint by a tungsten wire, to compare the torque produced by copper masses 105 cm from the balance axis with the torque produced by a copper mass 5 cm from the side of the balance bar, near its end. Defining Rexpt to be the measured ratio of the torques due to the masses at 105 cm and 5 cm, and RNewton to be the corresponding ratio computed assuming an inverse-square force law, we find δ≡(Rexpt/RNewton-1)=(1.2 +/-7)×10-4. Assuming a force deviating from an inverse-square distance dependence by a factor [1+ɛ lnr(cm)], this result implies ɛ=(0.5 +/-2.7)×10-4. An earlier experiment, which has been reported previously, is described here in detail. This experiment tested the inverse-square law over a distance range of approximately 2 to 5 cm, by probing the gravitational field inside a steel mass tube using a copper test mass suspended from the end of a torsion balance bar. This experiment yielded a value for the parameter ɛ defined above: ɛ=(1+/-7)×10-5. The results of both of these experiments are in good agreement with the Newton- ian prediction. Limits on the strength and range of a Yukawa potential term superimposed on the Newtonian gravitational potential are discussed.

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