Studying Antimatter Gravity with Muonium
1
Paul Scherrer Institute, 5232 Villigen, Switzerland
2
ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
3
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA
4
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
5
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Atoms 2018, 6(2), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/atoms6020017
Received: 13 February 2018 / Revised: 23 March 2018 / Accepted: 26 March 2018 / Published: 9 April 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Measuring Gravity in the Lab)
The gravitational acceleration of antimatter, , has yet to be directly measured; an unexpected outcome of its measurement could change our understanding of gravity, the universe, and the possibility of a fifth force. Three avenues are apparent for such a measurement: antihydrogen, positronium, and muonium, the last requiring a precision atom interferometer and novel muonium beam under development. The interferometer and its few-picometer alignment and calibration systems appear feasible. With 100 nm grating pitch, measurements of to 10%, 1%, or better can be envisioned. These could constitute the first gravitational measurements of leptonic matter, of 2nd-generation matter, and possibly, of antimatter.
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Keywords:
gravity; antimatter; muonium; atom interferometer; tracking frequency gauge
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Antognini, A.; Kaplan, D.M.; Kirch, K.; Knecht, A.; Mancini, D.C.; Phillips, J.D.; Phillips, T.J.; Reasenberg, R.D.; Roberts, T.J.; Soter, A. Studying Antimatter Gravity with Muonium. Atoms 2018, 6, 17.
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