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Quantum reflection of antihydrogen from a liquid helium film

Authors :
Crépin, P. -P.
Kupriyanova, E. A.
Guérout, R.
Lambrecht, A.
Nesvizhevsky, V. V.
Reynaud, S.
Vasiliev, S.
Voronin, A. Yu.
Source :
EPL, 119 (2017) 33001
Publication Year :
2017

Abstract

We study the quantum reflection of ultracold antihydrogen atoms bouncing on the surface of a liquid helium film. The Casimir-Polder potential and quantum reflection are calculated for different thicknesses of the film supported by different substrates. Antihydrogen can be protected from anni- hilation for as long as 1.3s on a bulk of liquid 4He, and 1.7s for liquid 3He. These large lifetimes open interesting perspectives for spectroscopic measurements of the free fall acceleration of antihydrogen. Variation of the scattering length with the thickness of a film of helium shows interferences which we interpret through a Liouville transformation of the quantum reflection problem.

Subjects

Subjects :
Physics - Atomic Physics

Details

Database :
arXiv
Journal :
EPL, 119 (2017) 33001
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.1709.07724
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/119/33001