Constraints on New Gravitylike Forces in the Nanometer Range

We report on a new constraint on gravitylike short-range forces, in which the interaction charge is mass, obtained by measuring the angular distribution of 5 {} neutrons scattering off atomic xenon gas. Around 10⁷ scattering events were collected at the 40 m small angle neutron scattering beam line located at the HANARO research reactor of the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute. The extracted coupling strengths of new forces in the Yukawa-type parametrization are ^g²=(0.2±6.8±2.0)×10^-15 GeV^-2 and ${{^}{g}}²=({-}5.3±{}9.{0}_{{-}2.8}+2.7)×{}1{0}^{{-}17} {GeV}^{{-}2}$ for interaction ranges of 0.1 and 1.0 nm, respectively. These strengths correspond to 95% confidence level limits of ${g}²<(1.4±{}0.2)×{}1{0}^{{-}14} {GeV}^{{-}2}$ and ${g}²<(1.3±{}0.2)×{}1{0}^{{-}16} {GeV}^{{-}2}$, improving the current limits for interaction ranges between 4 and 0.04 nm by a factor of up to 10.