This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant Award under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program provides funding to Northwestern University to develop an experiment that uses laser-cooled trapped nanospheres to test for deviations from Newtonian gravity at the micron length scale. The total funding amount is $182,071, with an award date of August 1, 2024 and an ultimate completion date of July 31, 2027.
The key products or services to be delivered through this grant include: (1) continued investigation of noise sources and systematic errors in preliminary gravity measurements, with a goal of acquiring 1 million seconds of integrated data in a dedicated Yukawa-force search at the 1-2 micron length scale, and (2) development of novel methods for trapping and cooling the levitated nanoparticles, including sympathetic cooling with cold atoms. These new techniques are expected to advance the understanding of gravity at the micron length scale by over three orders of magnitude and may lead to groundbreaking discoveries. No subawards are planned for this award.
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