Developing an Antimatter Gravity Interferometer

The assumption that the effects of gravity on antimatter and matter are equivalent has permeated throughout almost all of modern physical theory and experiment. However, no direct observation of this effect from gravity has been made on a particle in freefall. A muonium beam diffracting through a series of gratings has proven to be a suitable method for recording such freefall. Simulating this with the best current understanding of diffraction and interferometry is vital in determining this antimatter-gravity relationship, since a physical construction requires a picometer-precise atom interferometer and muonium beam. The development of these simulations has both demonstrated the relative feasibility of experimentation and brought to question the viability in applying certain physical modeling and simulation methods.

Department of Physics, Illinois Institute of Technology.