Abstract

In this work, we discuss the possibility of inertial sensing with positronium in the 2³S metastable state for the measurement of optical dipole, relativistic and gravitational forces on a purely leptonic matter-antimatter system. Starting from the characteristics of an available 2³S beam, we estimate the time necessary to measure accelerations ranging from ~10⁵ m/s² to 9.1 m/s² with two different inertial sensitive devices: a classical moiré deflectometer and a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The sensitivity of the Mach–Zehnder interferometer has been estimated to be several tens of times better than that of the moiré deflectometer, for the same measurement time. Different strategies to strengthen the 2³S beam flux and to improve the sensitivity of the devices are proposed and analyzed. Among them, the most promising are reducing the divergence of the positronium beam through 2D laser Doppler cooling and coherent positronium Raman excitation from the ground state to the 2³S level. If implemented, these improvements promise to result in the time required to measure an acceleration of 9.1 m/s² of few weeks and 100 m/s² of a few hours. Different detection schemes for resolving the fringe pattern shift generated on 2³S positronium crossing the deflectometer/interferometer are also discussed.

Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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用2 3 S正电子束向惯性传感

摘要

在这项工作中，我们讨论了在2 ³ S亚稳态下用正电子进行惯性传感的可能性，以测量纯轻子物质-反物质系统上的光学偶极子，相对论和引力。从可用的2 ³ S光束的特性开始，我们估计测量加速度所需的时间约为10 ⁵  m / s ²到9.1 m / s ²带有两种不同的惯性敏感设备：经典的莫尔偏转仪和马赫曾德尔干涉仪。在相同的测量时间下，马赫曾德尔干涉仪的灵敏度据估计比莫尔偏转仪的灵敏度高几十倍。提出并分析了增强2 ³ S光束通量并提高器件灵敏度的不同策略。其中，最有前途的是通过2D激光多普勒冷却和相干的正电子拉曼激发从基态到2 ³ S降低正电子束的发散。如果实施，这些改进有望导致测量9.1 m / s ²的加速度所需的时间。几周的时间和几小时的100 m / s ²。还讨论了用于解决在2 ³ S crossing上通过偏转仪/干涉仪产生的条纹图案偏移的不同检测方案。

图形概要