Gravitational induced phase effects are investigated in neutron interferometry for testing the validity of the Newtonian potential

• Applicant: Dr. Michael Zawisky
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 167735302

Gravitational phases induced on the neutron shall systematically be investigated in large neutron interferometers. In the perfect crystal interferometer, a single neutron is macroscopically separated by several centimetres and experiences phase shifts depending on the height of one path above the other. But the hitherto measured phase shifts are approximately 1% lower than expected. As the gravitational phase shift increases with the interferometer size the new generation of large neutron interferometers will be much more sensitive to gravitation. Our aim is the verification of the Newtonian gravitation law for a macroscopically separated very light sub-atomar quantum object. The same setup will be exploited for sensing hypothetic non-Newtonian short-range interactions by accurately measuring the coherent scattering length of silicon in a perfect crystal at different lattice reflections. A special feature of our setup is the sensitivity to the submicron interaction regime. This has the additional benefit that simultaneously a precision measurement of the neutron-electron scattering length is obtained.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1491: Precision Experiments in Particle- and Astrophysics with Cold and Ultracold Neutrons
• International Connection: Austria