📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

General relativity, treated as a low-energy effective field theory, predicts quantum corrections to Newton's law of gravitation arising from loops of matter and graviton fields. While these corrections are utterly negligible when considering the Standard Model particle content, the situation changes dramatically in the presence of a hidden or dark sector containing a very large number of light degrees of freedom. In such cases, loop-induced modifications to the Newtonian potential can accumulate to levels testable in laboratory and astrophysical probes of gravity at short distances. In this work we systematically derive and constrain the impact of large dark sectors on precision tests of Newton's law, translating effective field theory predictions into the experimental language of Yukawa-type deviations and inverse-square law deformations. By mapping precision fifth-force constraints onto bounds on species multiplicities and masses, we show that current and future experiments already impose nontrivial constraints on the size and structure of hidden sectors coupled only gravitationally. Our results provide a model-independent framework for confronting dark-sector scenarios with precision gravity data, and highlight the complementarity of particle physics and short-distance gravitational tests in probing new physics beyond the Standard Model.