Spatial confinement of muonium atoms

K.S. Khaw , A. Antognini , T. Prokscha , K. Kirch , L. Liszkay (1) , Z. Salman , P. Crivelli

1 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers

We report the achievement of spatial confinement of muonium atoms (the bound state of a positive muon and an electron). Muonium emitted into a vacuum from mesoporous silica reflects between two SiO2 confining surfaces separated by 1 mm. From the data, one can extract that the reflection probability on the confining surfaces kept at 100 K is about 90% and the reflection process is well described by a cosine law. This technique enables new experiments with this exotic atomic system and is a very important step towards a measurement of the 1S-2S transition frequency using continuous-wave laser spectroscopy.

Mots clés: muonium; confinement; silicon: oxygen; laser; spectrometer; measurement methods; atom: excited state

Domaines: Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]; Physique des Hautes Energies - Expérience [hep-ex]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

K.S. Khaw, A. Antognini, T. Prokscha, K. Kirch, L. Liszkay, et al.. Spatial confinement of muonium atoms. Physical Review A, 2016, 94 (2), pp.022716. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.94.022716⟩. ⟨hal-01554144⟩