The goal of the AEgIS experiment is to measure the gravitational acceleration of antihydrogen - the simplest atom consisting entirely of antimatter - with the ultimate precision of 1%. We plan to verify the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP), one of the fundamental laws of nature, with an antimatter beam. The experiment consists of a positron accumulator, an antiproton trap and a Stark accelerator in a solenoidal magnetic field to form and accelerate a pulsed beam of antihydrogen atoms towards a free-fall detector. The antihydrogen beam passes through a moiré deflectometer to measure the vertical displacement due to the gravitational force. A position and time sensitive hybrid detector registers the annihilation points of the antihydrogen atoms and their time-of-flight. The detection principle has been successfully tested with antiprotons and a miniature moiré deflectometer coupled to a nuclear emulsion detector.

Testing the Weak Equivalence Principle with an antimatter beam at CERN

AGHION, STEFANO;CONSOLATI, GIOVANNI;FERRAGUT, RAFAEL OMAR;Sacerdoti, M.;
2015-01-01

Abstract

The goal of the AEgIS experiment is to measure the gravitational acceleration of antihydrogen - the simplest atom consisting entirely of antimatter - with the ultimate precision of 1%. We plan to verify the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP), one of the fundamental laws of nature, with an antimatter beam. The experiment consists of a positron accumulator, an antiproton trap and a Stark accelerator in a solenoidal magnetic field to form and accelerate a pulsed beam of antihydrogen atoms towards a free-fall detector. The antihydrogen beam passes through a moiré deflectometer to measure the vertical displacement due to the gravitational force. A position and time sensitive hybrid detector registers the annihilation points of the antihydrogen atoms and their time-of-flight. The detection principle has been successfully tested with antiprotons and a miniature moiré deflectometer coupled to a nuclear emulsion detector.
2015
Atoms; Emulsification; Photographic emulsions; Tracking (position); Antihydrogen atoms; Fundamental laws; Gravitational accelerations; Gravitational forces; Nuclear emulsions; Stark accelerator; Vertical displacements; Weak equivalence principle
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11311/970221
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