Speaker
Description
The LEMING experiment aims to measure the gravitational free fall of muonium (Mu = $\mu^+ + e^-$), a purely leptonic, exotic atom. The experiment will be a unique probe to test the weak equivalence principle on elementary, second generation antimatter using a system without large contributions to the mass from the strong interaction.
The experiment will employ atom interferometry using a three-grating interferometer, which relies on a novel, cold vacuum Mu source with a narrow energy and transverse momentum distribution. We have demonstrated the working principle of such novel source based on Mu conversion of conventional muon beams in a thin layer of superfluid helium, that provided $\sim$ 8 % conversion efficiency to an atomic beam with $\sim$ 25~mrad angular divergence. Such a Mu beam may be amenable to atom interferometry measurements that would provide a $\sim$ 1% precision on the gravitational acceleration of Mu, and furthermore, has the potential to improve the fractional precision of Mu 1S-2S measurements.
In this contribution the LEMING experiment will be introduced and measurements on the first observation of Mu emitted from superfluid helium and an initial characterization of the novel Mu source will be presented. Prospects of this newly developed atomic Mu beam from superfluid helium in the context of future gravity and spectroscopy experiments will be discussed.
