If There Is a Fifth Force, Asteroid Activities Can Help Find It

Outside of the physics we know there are many unproven possibilities, including the fifth force of gravity, electromagnetism, and weak nuclear energy. Our failure to confirm its existence suggests that any fifth force may be weak, but it could still explain some of the strangest aspects of the universe. We may need very precise measurements to find it, and the activities of nearby asteroids may provide them.

Tips for a fifth power always appear in our data, although other studies have concluded that there is no real evidence for one. Although theologians have put forward some suggestions, there is no consensus on what the other five powers are, so they are particularly difficult to find. However, if we find something that can’t be explained by the four forces, it will represent a great light.

“Irregularities in the path of objects across the sky have often led to the discovery of new laws of nature or celestial bodies,” Dr. Yu-Dai Tsai of Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-authors write in a paper on the topic. this. “The planet Neptune was discovered based on errors in the orbit of Uranus according to Newton’s theory, and General Relativity was confirmed for the first time by predicting that Mercury would be in a strange way.”

Sometimes there are complaints of differences in the movements of the planets but these are usually proven to be errors or the effect of the gravity of something that we did not pay attention to. Asteroid orbits may have other complex features that are too small to be considered or absent for planets. These include barriers from impacts and sunlight pressure acting on the surface.

Therefore, if the orbit of the asteroid is not as good as we expected, there may be other explanations besides previously unknown forces. However, if we reject other adequate explanations, we may need to think more strongly.

Until recently we didn’t follow the paths of asteroids well enough to see something very subtle, but that is changing. Asteroids crossing Earth’s orbit are now being tracked closely, especially those we have sent missions to, such as Bennu and the Didymos/Dimorphos system.

“Interpreting the data we see in terms of Bennu has the potential to add to our understanding of the fundamentals of the universe, potentially renewing our understanding of the Standard Model of physics, gravity and dark matter. ,” Tsai said in a statement.

Using data from the OSIRIS-REx mission and ground-based measurements Tsai and colleagues looked for anomalies in Bennu’s orbit.

Based on what is available, the authors report, “There is no evidence in the data for the existence of a fifth force affecting the movement of Bennu.” However, they don’t consider the project over. As good as the data is, it still has some uncertainties, which puts a ceiling on the potential power of such a power on this scale.

When Apophis approaches Earth in 2029, the team plans to use unique precision measurements that will be made to look for deviations from expectations. They expect that this will ensure a wide range of possibilities for the fifth power and beyond.

Known energy consists of subatomic particles that conduct it. The strong force, although it is much stronger than the others by a small amount, does not reach far outside the nucleus because the gluons that carry it cannot travel far. An extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics proposes a superluminous boson that could carry the fifth energy. In order to be reflected in the asteroids, this energy would have to be long range, like gravity, so the carriers would not be compressed like gluons. However, there is a lot of evidence that makes us think that such a force exists in a much larger number of galaxies, so maybe this is not a problem.

The fifth ultralight energy-carrying bosons are variants of dark matter. However, many other types of dark matter have been proposed, and if these are lurking in the Solar System they could produce different changes in asteroid orbits. The authors also consider the possibility that so-called dark photons or other unusual particles could have an effect.

This study has been published open access in Communication Physics.