Paper detail

A Compendium of Chameleon Constraints

The chameleon model is a scalar field theory with a screening mechanism that explains how a cosmologically relevant light scalar can avoid the constraints of intra-solar-system searches for fifth-forces. The chameleon is a popular dark energy candidate and also arises in $f(R)$ theories of gravity. Whilst the chameleon is designed to avoid historical searches for fifth-forces it is not unobservable and much effort has gone into identifying the best observables and experiments to detect it. These results are not always presented for the same models or in the same language, a particular problem when comparing astrophysical and laboratory searches making it difficult to understand what regions of parameter space remain. Here we present combined constraints on the chameleon model from astrophysical and laboratory searches for the first time and identify the remaining windows of parameter space. We discuss the implications for cosmological chameleon searches and future small-scale probes.