Some time ago
I have also been working on possible measurable effects that dark energy could
produce on laboratory scales.
So far nobody really knows what dark energy is. All that is known is
that it is an unknown homogeneous form
of energy that drives the accelerated
expansion of the universe.
It could be some form of vacuum energy that is produced by quantum fluctuations.
Some models of dark energy
allow for an interaction of dark energy with Cooper pairs
in superconductors.
A paper discussing possible laboratory tests
can be found here.
We have been suggesting
to use either
Josephson junctions or
rotating superconductors
as suitable `dark energy detectors'.
The first paper of mine in this direction is called
Could dark energy be measured in the lab?
There have been a number of
popular science articles
that describe the basic concepts
and experimental approaches underlying this idea:
PhysicsWeb (June 2004)
New Scientist (July 2004)
Nature (July 2004)
New Scientist (April 2007)
Cosmos magazine (August 2007)
El Pais (March 2008)