Speaker
Description
The LEMING experiment at the Paul Scherrer institute aims to measure the free fall of muonium (M $= \mu^+ + e^-$), an exotic atom consisting purely of leptons. Measuring the free fall of M would be the first test of the weak equivalence principle using elementary antimatter of the second generation and using a system without large hadronic contributions to its mass.
Such a direct measurement is performed by atom interferometry, which requires a high intensity, low emittance M beam. We are developing a novel M source based on stopping accelerator muons in a layer of superfluid helium at cryogenic temperatures.
In this contribution, results from the first observation of M emitted from superfluid helium are presented. An initial characterization of the M source shows a high vacuum M yield and sub-thermal beam dynamics. Prospects of this novel beam in the context of a free fall experiment will be discussed.
| Field of contribution | Particle physics |
|---|
