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Quantum ballistic experiment on antihydrogen fall

Atomic Physics 2017-10-20 v1

Abstract

We study an interferometric approach to measure gravitational mass of antihydrogen. The method consists of preparing a coherent superposition of antihydrogen quantum state localized near a material surface in the gravitational field of the Earth, and then observing the time distribution of annihilation events followed after the free fall of an initially prepared superposition from a given height to the detector plate. We show that a corresponding time distribution is related to the momentum distribution in the initial state that allows its precise measurement. This approach is combined with a method of production of a coherent superposition of gravitational states by inducing a resonant transition using oscillating gradient magnetic field. We estimate an accuracy of measuring the gravitational mass of antihydrogen atom which could be deduced from such a measurement.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1510.00866,
  title  = {Quantum ballistic experiment on antihydrogen fall},
  author = {A. Yu. Voronin and V. V. Nesvizhevsky and G. Dufour and S. Reynaud},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.00866},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1403.4783

R2 v1 2026-06-22T11:12:08.655Z