Constraining Yukawa-type interaction and coupling constant of axionlike particles to nucleons from recent measurement of the Casimir–Polder interaction

Abstract We derive constraints on the parameters of the Yukawa-type interaction and on the coupling constant of axionlike particles to nucleons from the results of recent diffraction experiment on measuring the Casimir–Polder interaction between Ar atoms and a silicon nitride nanograting. It is shown that within the interaction range from 1 to 14.85 nm the obtained constraints are by up to a factor of $$3.34\times 10^4$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>3.34</mml:mn> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> stronger than all the other ones found previously from measurements of the Casimir force. The derived constraints are comparable in strength with those deduced from the experiments on neutron scattering. The constraints on the coupling constants of axionlike particles to nucleons following from the diffraction experiment are up to a factor of 24.2 stronger withing the range of axion masses from 32.4 to 100 eV than the previously derived ones from experiments on measuring the Casimir force. They are weaker only in comparison to the constraints found from the experiment using the beams of molecular hydrogen. The potential of the Casimir effect for obtaining stronger constraints on the parameters of hypothetical interactions is discussed.