GRASIAN: shaping and characterization of the cold hydrogen and deuterium beams for the forthcoming first demonstration of gravitational quantum states of atoms
16 Dec 2024 New publication: Our recent measurement results on the collimation of the hydrogen beam to 2 mm, the reduction of background and improvement of signal-to-noise and finally our first detection of atoms with velocities < 72 ms−1 are presented. Furthermore, we show calculations, estimating the feasibility of the planned experiment and simulations which confirm that we can select vertical velocity components in the order of cm s−1. Eur. Phys. J. D (2024)78:132 doi
Collaboration meeting 2023
The next collaboration meeting will be held on April 13-14, 2023, at ETH Zürich.
Program (restricted access)
Publication: A Trap for ultra-cold atomic hydrogen
03.02.2022 The GRASIAN collaboration published the description of a “Large-volume magnetic trap for studying ultracold atomic hydrogen” in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments. The device allows creating large volumes of atomic hydrogen at millikelvin temperatures. Its development is a mile stone towards producing ultra-cold hydrogen for the observation of gravitational quantum states of hydrogen, which have a large potential for precision optical and microwave spectroscopy as well as searches for short-range forces originating from effects beyond the Standard Model of particle physics like dark matter. The publication is featured on the journal front page, web page, and in a Scilight https://doi.org/10.1063/10.0009561. The full article is available at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0070037.
Hydrogen atoms with velocity below 50 m/s observed
01.09.2021 In an experiment at ETH Zürich GRASIAN members observed very slow atomic hydrogen atoms in a cold beam which are needed to observed gravtiational quantum states of hydrogen for the first time. The results were presented at the joint Austrian and Swiss Physical Society meeting in Innsbruck, Austria, by C. Killian. The presentation can be downloaded here.
Publication: A magneto-gravitational trap for studies of gravitational quantum states
10.06.2020 A new publication by GRASIAN proposes a novel magneto-graviational trap for atoms, anti-atoms, and neutrons. Nesvizhevsky, V. V. et al. The European Physical Journal C 123, 1–10 (2020).