Constraints on monopole-dipole potential from the tests of gravity: first bounds from single astrophysical observations

Abstract

Ultralight Axion Like Particle (ALP) can mediate a long range monopole-dipole macroscopic force between Earth and Sun if Earth is treated as a polarized source. There are about 1042 number of polarized electrons in Earth due to the presence of the geomagnetic field. The monopole-dipole interactions between electrons in Earth and nucleons in Sun can influence the perihelion precession of Earth, gravitational light bending and Shapiro time delay. The contribution of monopole-dipole potential is limited to be no larger than the measurement uncertainty. We obtain the first bound on monopole-dipole strength from single astrophysical observations. The perihelion precession of Earth puts the stronger bound on monopole-dipole coupling strength as gSgP≲3.62×10−11 for the ALP of mass ma≲1.35×10-18 eV