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Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Antimatter and Gravity (WAG 2013); University of Bern, Switzerland, 13-15 November 2013; Editors: Claude Amsler and Paola Scampoli
MPINP:
Präzisionsexperimente - Abteilung Blaum
Abstract:
We present new experimental ideas to investigate the gravitational interaction of antihydrogen. The experiment can first be performed in an off-line mirror measurement on hydrogen atoms, as a testing ground for our methods, before the implementation with antihydrogen atoms. A beam of hydrogen atoms is formed by launching a cold beam of protons through a cloud of trapped electrons in a nested Penning trap arrangement. In the next step, the atoms are stopped in a series of pulsed electromagnetic coils — so-called atomic coilgun. The stopped atoms are confined in a magnetic quadrupole trap and cooled by single-photon laser cooling. We intend to employ the method of Raman interferometry to study the gravitational interaction of atomic hydrogen — and later on antihydrogen at the FLAIR facility — with high sensitivity.