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 Å 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)×10-15GeV-2 and g2=(-5.3±9.0-2.8+2.7)×10-17GeV-2 for interaction ranges of 0.1 and 1.0 nm, respectively. These strengths correspond to 95% confidence level limits of g2<(1.4±0.2)×10-14GeV-2 and g2<(1.3±0.2)×10-16GeV-2, improving the current limits for interaction ranges between 4 and 0.04 nm by a factor of up to 10.