I was interviewed by Alessandra Saletti, head of the University of Trento’s Press Office and External Relations, on our paper on fifth forces and Bennu in Communications Physics. The piece appeared in UniTrentoMag, the University of Trento’s online magazine, and is available both in Italian and English, at the links below:
mag.unitn.it/ricerca/121147/polvere-di-asteroidi-sulle-tracce-della-quinta-forza
mag.unitn.it/ricerca/121147/polvere-di-asteroidi-sulle-tracce-della-quinta-forza#English-version
Enjoy the read!
Press release for fifth forces and Bennu paper
Following the publication of our paper on fifth forces and Bennu in Communications Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory has issued a press release which you can find at the following link:
discover.lanl.gov/news/1007-near-earth-asteroid/
This has also been reposted and covered by several other news websites such as Phys.org, Sciencepost, Universe Today, Science News, and Esquire (see Altmetric):
phys.org/news/2024-10-earth-asteroid-probe-universe.html
sciencepost.fr/asteroides-pour-reveler-cinquieme-force-univers
www.universetoday.com/168882/can-an-asteroids-movements-reveal-a-new-force-in-the-universe
www.sciencenews.org/article/asteroid-bennu-dark-matter
www.esquire.com/es/ciencia/a62605060/quinta-fuerza-asteorides-cientificos
Enjoy the read!
Fifth forces and Bennu paper mentioned in Scientific American
A recent piece in Scientific American, mainly focused on this recent paper on tests of asteroid-mass primordial black holes from Solar System ephemerides, dedicated a paragraph to our recent paper in Communications Physics on using the asteroid Bennu to test dark matter and other aspects of fundamental physics (see this earlier news item), with quotes from first author Yu-Dai Tsai. Here is a link to the piece in Scientific American:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-matter-black-holes-could-fly-through-the-solar-system-once-a-decade/
Fifth forces and Bennu paper published in Communications Physics!
My paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Davide Farnocchia, Marco Micheli, and Luca Visinelli, where we use OSIRIS-REx tracking data for the asteroid Bennu to set new constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter (see this earlier news item), has now officially been published in Communications Physics (making this my first proper Nature publication)! The full bibliographic coordinates for the paper are Commun. Phys. 7 (2024) 311. Here is the link to the paper (which is published Open Access).
Fifth forces and Bennu paper accepted in Communications Physics!
Very happy to report that my paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Davide Farnocchia, Marco Micheli, and Luca Visinelli, where we use OSIRIS-REx tracking data for the asteroid Bennu to set new constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter (see this earlier news item), has officially been accepted for publication in the prestigious Communications Physics, part of the Nature Portfolio collection of journals (it is my second time publishing in Nature journals after my 2020 book review in Nature Astronomy, but only the first time publishing a proper original scientific article)! It was quite a long journey, with a couple of rounds of revision on both the scientific and editorial sides, although overall there were no major changes to our results which, if anything, have been clarified better. You can read the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2309.13106.
Constraints on fifth forces from OSIRIS-REx tracking data for Bennu
Really excited about the new preprint we just posted with Yu-Dai Tsai, Davide Farnocchia, Marco Micheli, and Luca Visinelli, where we use OSIRIS-REx tracking data for the asteroid Bennu to set new constraints on fifth forces and ultralight dark matter - in certain ranges of mediator mass these are among the tightest constraints ever obtained! This is a follow-up to our earlier paper in JCAP where we only considered the effect of such particles on the asteroid orbital precession. In our new preprint we are instead using real tracking data from the OSIRIS-REx mission and ground-based optical and radar telescopes, gathering as much information as possible on Bennu’s full trajectory. The timing is, to say the least, perfect, as in the past days OSIRIS-REx has been making headlines, being on its way back to Earth with a sample of Bennu. You can read our results in the preprint we just posted on arXiv: 2309.13106.
Media coverage for asteroid paper
Our work the use of asteroids to search for fifth forces has been picked up by Vice, who interviewed first author Yu-Dai Tsai. You can read their piece here:
www.vice.com/en/article/z3mx4a/scientists-want-to-use-asteroids-to-search-for-hidden-fifth-force
Asteroid and fifth forces paper published in JCAP!
My paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Youjia Wu, and Luca Visinelli on the use of asteroids as a probe of fifth forces, which I previously reported on in an earlier news item, has now officially been published in JCAP! The full bibliographic coordinates for the paper are JCAP 2304 (2023) 031. Here is the link to the paper.
Asteroid precession and fifth forces paper accepted in JCAP!
My paper with Yu-Dai Tsai, Youjia Wu, and Luca Visinelli, where we use asteroids as a probe of fifth forces, including those mediated by new ultralight particles which could be the dark matter, has been accepted for publication in JCAP! We find that we can potentially set some of the leading fifth force constraints in a certain range of mediator mass. This is another paper which has gone through a really long journey, as it was conceived during a brainstorm Zoom call in October 2020. We are now developing a number of follow-up ideas with asteroid experts, so stay tuned for more! You can find the preprint version of the paper on arXiv: 2107.04038.