Study of the neutron quantum states in the gravity field

By V. Nesvizhevsky, A. Petukhov, Hans G. Börner, T. A. Baranova, A. Gagarski, G. Petrov, K. Protasov, A. Voronin, S. Baessler, Hartmut Abele and 2 more. 2005

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract.We have studied neutron quantum states in the potential well formed by the earth’s gravitational field and a horizontal mirror. The estimated characteristic sizes of the neutron wave functions in the two lowest quantum states correspond to expectations with an experimental accuracy. A position-sensitive neutron detector with an extra-high spatial resolution of $\sim 2 \mathrm{\mu} $m was developed and tested for this particular experiment, to be used to measure the spatial density distribution in a standing neutron wave above a mirror for a set of some of the lowest quantum states. The present experiment can be used to set an upper limit for an additional short-range fundamental force. We studied methodological uncertainties as well as the feasibility of improving further the accuracy of this experiment.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a0db010725bd440eb512ae8d5e0784384029b49d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Citations in the corpus

The effects of minimal length and maximal momentum on the transition rate of ultra cold neutrons in gravitational field (2011, methodology): “We can also use these results for the case of ultra cold neutrons in an experiment with high precision neutron gravitational spectrometer which has been demonstrated few years ago [25, 26, 27].”
Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology (2008, background): “[428, 429] to put bounds on space/time noncommutativity,(40) although only at the level θj0 < 10 −9 m(2) (whereas interest from the Planck-scale-quantum-spacetime side would focus in the neighborhood of θj0 ∼ 10−70 m(2)).”