AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) is an experiment that aims to perform the first direct measurement of the gravitational acceleration g of antihydrogen in the Earth's field. A cold antihydrogen beam will be produced by charge exchange reaction between cold antiprotons and positronium excited in Rydberg states. Rydberg positronium (with quantum number n between 20 and 30) will be produced by a two steps laser excitation. The antihydrogen beam, after being accelerated by Stark effect, will fly through the gratings of a moir, deflectometer. The deflection of the horizontal beam due to its free fall will be measured by a position sensitive detector. It is estimated that the detection of about 10(3) antihydrogen atoms is required to determine the gravitational acceleration with a precision of 1%. In this report an overview of the AEgIS experiment is presented and its current status is described. Details on the production of slow positronium and its excitation with lasers are discussed.

AEgIS Experiment: Towards Antihydrogen Beam Production for Antimatter Gravity Measurements

AGHION, STEFANO;CONSOLATI, GIOVANNI;FERRAGUT, RAFAEL OMAR;MOIA, FABIO;
2014-01-01

Abstract

AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) is an experiment that aims to perform the first direct measurement of the gravitational acceleration g of antihydrogen in the Earth's field. A cold antihydrogen beam will be produced by charge exchange reaction between cold antiprotons and positronium excited in Rydberg states. Rydberg positronium (with quantum number n between 20 and 30) will be produced by a two steps laser excitation. The antihydrogen beam, after being accelerated by Stark effect, will fly through the gratings of a moir, deflectometer. The deflection of the horizontal beam due to its free fall will be measured by a position sensitive detector. It is estimated that the detection of about 10(3) antihydrogen atoms is required to determine the gravitational acceleration with a precision of 1%. In this report an overview of the AEgIS experiment is presented and its current status is described. Details on the production of slow positronium and its excitation with lasers are discussed.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/884385
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