Description and first application of a new technique to measure the gravitational mass of antihydrogen
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- York Univ., Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Simon Fraser Univ., Burnaby, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics
- Swansea Univ. (United Kingdom). College of Science. Dept. of Physics; Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy; The Cockcroft Inst., Warrington (United Kingdom). Daresbury Lab.
- European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland). Dept. of Physics
- Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Instituto de Fısica. Departmento de Fısica Nuclear
- Swansea Univ. (United Kingdom). College of Science. Dept. of Physics
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Calgary, AB (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada). Science Division
- Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Aarhus Univ. (Denmark). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
- Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Canadian Inst. of Advanced Research, Toronto, ON (Canada)
- Stockholm Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Physics
- Univ. of Liverpool (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics
- Auburn Univ., AL (United States). Dept. of Physics
- NRCN-Nuclear Research Center Negev, Beer Sheva IL (Israel). Dept. of Physics
Physicists have long wondered whether the gravitational interactions between matter and antimatter might be different from those between matter and itself. Although there are many indirect indications that no such differences exist and that the weak equivalence principle holds, there have been no direct, free-fall style, experimental tests of gravity on antimatter. Here we describe a novel direct test methodology; we search for a propensity for antihydrogen atoms to fall downward when released from the ALPHA antihydrogen trap. In the absence of systematic errors, we can reject ratios of the gravitational to inertial mass of antihydrogen 475 at a statistical significance level of 5%; worst-case systematic errors increase the minimum rejection ratio to 110. A similar search places somewhat tighter bounds on a negative gravitational mass, that is, on antigravity. This methodology, coupled with ongoing experimental improvements, should allow us to bound the ratio within the more interesting near equivalence regime.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- Contributing Organization:
- The ALPHA Collaboration
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1623908
- Journal Information:
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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