Experimental limit on the ratio of the gravitational mass to the inertial mass of antihydrogen

POSTER

Abstract

Physicists have long wondered if the gravitational interactions between matter and antimatter might be different from those between matter and itself. While there are many indirect indications that no such differences exist, i.e., that the weak equivalence principle holds, there have been no direct, free-fall style, experimental tests of gravity on antimatter. By searching for a propensity for antihydrogen atoms to fall downward when released from the ALPHA antihydrogen trap, we have determined that we can reject ratios of the gravitational mass to the inertial mass of antihydrogen greater than about 100 at a statistical significance level of 5{\%}. A similar search places somewhat lower limits on a negative gravitational mass, i.e., on antigravity.

Authors

  • Joel Fajans

    Department of Physics, UC Berkeley, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, U.C. Berkeley

  • Jonathan Wurtele

    UC Berkeley, Department of Physics, UC Berkeley, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley

  • Andrew Charman

    Department of Physics, UC Berkeley, U.C. Berkeley

  • Andrey Zhmoginov

    U.C. Berkeley