Speaker
Carina Killian
(Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT))
Description
At very low energies, an atom above a horizontal surface can experience quantum reflection due to the attractive Casimir-Polder potential. The quantum reflection holds the atom against gravity and leads to quantum gravitational states (GQS), in analogy to what has been observed with ultracold neutrons.
The GRASIAN-collaboration pursues the first measurement of GQS of atomic hydrogen. The use of hydrogen is not only motivated by the fact, that GQS have never been observed with atoms. The enhanced statistics available through the use of hydrogen atoms (versus ultracold neutrons) will increase the sensitivity to deviations from Newtonian Gravity.
Primary author
Carina Killian
(Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT))
Co-authors
Eberhard Widmann
(Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT))
Francois Nez
(Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (FR))
Katharina Schreiner
Otto Hanski
(University of Turku)
Paolo Crivelli
(ETH Zurich (CH))
Pauline Yzombard
Philipp Peter Blumer
(ETH Zurich (CH))
Sergey Vasiliev
(University of Turku)
Prof.
Valery Nesvizhevsky
