Investigation of the Neutron Quantum States in the Earth's Gravitational Field

• Published in: Journal of research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Vol. 110; no. 3; pp. 263 - 267
• Main Authors: Nesvizhevsky, V V, Petukhov, A K, Börner, H G, Baranova, T A, Gagarski, A M, Petrov, G A, Protasov, K V, Voronin, A Yu, Baeßler, S, Abele, H, Westphal, A, Lucovac, L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Institute of Standards and Technology 01.05.2005; Superintendent of Documents; [Gaithersburg, MD] : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Subjects: Analysis; Atomic properties; Gravity; Neutrons; Nuclear physics; Particle physics; Quantum theory; Spectrum analysis; United States; gravitation; neutrons; quantum mechanics
• ISSN: 1044-677X; 2165-7254
• DOI: 10.6028/jres.110.036

We studied the neutron quantum states in the potential well formed by the Earth's gravitational field and a horizontal mirror. The estimated characteristic sizes of the neutron wave functions in two lowest quantum states correspond to their expectations with an accuracy of ≈25 %. The spatial density distribution in a standing neutron wave above a mirror was measured for a set of a few lowest quantum states. A position-sensitive neutron detector with an extra high spatial resolution of 1 μm to 2 μm was developed and tested for this particular task. Although this experiment was not designed or optimized to search for an additional short-range force, nevertheless it allowed us to slightly improve the published boundary in the nanometer range of characteristic distances. We studied systematical uncertainties in the chosen "flow-through" method as well as the feasibility to improve further the accuracy in this experiment.