Chirped-Frequency Excitation of Gravitationally Bound Ultracold Neutrons
arXiv:1511.06651 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.95.025016
Abstract
Ultracold neutrons confined in the Earth's gravitational field display quantized energy levels that have been observed for over a decade. In recent resonance spectroscopy experiments [T. Jenke et al., Nature Phys. 7, 468 (2011)], the transition between two such gravitational quantum states was driven by the mechanical oscillation of the plates that confine the neutrons. Here we show that, by applying a sinusoidal modulation with slowly varying frequency (chirp), the neutrons can be brought to higher excited states by climbing the energy levels one by one. The proposed experiment should make it possible to observe the quantum-classical transition that occurs at high neutron energies. Furthermore, it provides a technique to realize superpositions of gravitational quantum states, to be used for precision tests of gravity at short distances.
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- Mass-energy equivalence in gravitationally bound quantum states of the neutron
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- Quantum versus classical effects in the chirped-drive discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation
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- Impulsively Excited Gravitational Quantum States: Echoes and Time-resolved Spectroscopy
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