Description
Many modified gravity theories lead to the introduction of a new scalar
field which would be expected to cause an additional gravity-like force.
However, so far no solar system based observation could confirm the existence
of such a fifth force. A way of explaining a force’s apparent absence
is by a screening mechanism. For example, chameleon scalar fields
obey to a mechanism by which they adapt their mass to the mass density
of their environment. In this way, a force caused by chameleons is
screened in our solar system due to the large effective mass of its carrier.
Nevertheless, there are possible manners of observing chameleons even in
earth based experiments. One way would be to look at the effect of the
chameleon force on the decoherence of two parts of a wave function in an
atom interferometer. I will present the method of calculating the time of
chameleon-induced decoherence in such an experiment and current results
of this calculation.