New Test of the Gravitational Inverse-Square Law at the Submillimeter Range with Dual Modulation and Compensation

By using a torsion pendulum and a rotating eightfold symmetric attractor with dual modulation of both the interested signal and the gravitational calibration signal, a new test of the gravitational inverse-square law at separations down to 295  μm is presented. A dual-compensation design by adding masses on both the pendulum and the attractor was adopted to realize a null experiment. The experimental result shows that, at a 95% confidence level, the gravitational inverse-square law holds (|α|≤1) down to a length scale λ=59  μm. This work establishes the strongest bound on the magnitude α of Yukawa-type deviations from Newtonian gravity in the range of 70-300  μm, and improves the previous bounds by up to a factor of 2 at the length scale λ≈160  μm.