CONSTRAINTS FOR HYPOTHETICAL INTERACTIONS FROM A RECENT DEMONSTRATIONOF THE CASIMIR FORCE AND SOME POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS - ART. NO. 075003

The Casimir force is calculated in the configuration of a spherical le ns and a disc of finite radius covered by Cu and Au thin layers which was used in a recent experiment. The correction to the Casimir force d ue to finiteness of the disc radius is shown to be negligible. Also th e corrections are discussed due to the finite conductivity, large-scal e and short-scale deviations from the perfect shape of the bounding su rfaces and the temperature correction. They were found to be essential when confronting the theoretical results with experimental data. Both Yukawa-type and power-law hypothetical forces are computed which may act in the configuration under consideration due to the exchange of li ght and/or massless elementary particles between the atoms of the lens and the disc. New constraints on the constants of these forces are de termined which follow from the fact that they were not observed within the limits of experimental errors. For Yukawa-type forces the new con straints are up to 30 times stronger than the best ones known today. A possible improvement of experimental parameters is proposed which giv es the possibility to strengthen constraints on Yukawa-type interactio ns up to 10(4) times and on power-law interactions up to several hundr ed times. [S0556-2821(98)03717-5].