Test of weak equivalence principle with antimatter
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Final Report Abstract
It is a very well experimentally tested fact that matter is accelerated by the earth’s mass independent of its decomposition – this is known as the weak equivalence principle. So far there is no direct test that this also holds for anti-matter. Thus it is an experimental challenge to confirm the weak equivalence principle explicitly and directly. Since anti-matter can only be produced at CERN it is the goal of different collaborations to reach this goal. The collaboration AEgIS is pursuing the goal by realizing a beam of anti-hydrogen at low energies but also implies that deviations from straight flight due to gravity are only few tens of micrometer. Within this project we have investigated the potential of a device developed in the context of quantum atom optics – a moiré deflectometer – for detecting these small changes in position. In this project we successfully demonstrated the moiré deflectometer for anti-protons. An important result in preparation for the realization of anti-hydrogen. The results have been published in Nature Communications. This setup has been further improved protons leading to a sensitive device for detecting electric fields as low as 22 µV/V/√Hz. The test of gravitational acceleration of anti-hydrogen is still pending mainly due to the lack of an intensive anti-hydrogen source. Currently no anti-hydrogen can be produced due to a two-year shutdown.
Publications
- A moiré deflectometer for antimatter. Nat. Commun., 2014, Vol. 5, 4538
S. Aghion, …, P. Bräunig, …, M. K. Oberthaler, … (AEgIS collaboration)
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5538) - Probing electric and magnetic fields with a moiré deflectometer. Nuclear instruments and methods in physics research A, 2017, Vol. 862 49
P. Lansonneur, P. Bräunig, A. Demetrio , S.R. Müller, P. Nedelec, M.K. Oberthaler
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2017.04.041) - Progress toward a large-scale ion Talbot-Lau interferometer. Physical Review A, 2017, Vol. 96, 063604
A. Demetrio, S. R. Müller, P. Lansonneur, M. K. Oberthaler
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.96.063604)
