Spatial confinement of muonium atoms

Abstract

We report the achievement of spatial confinement of muonium atoms (the bound state of a positive muon and an electron). Muonium emitted into vacuum from mesoporous silica reflects between two SiO${}_2$ 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.

5 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (3)

• The cosine law at the atomic scale: Toward realistic simulations of Knudsen diffusion
• Observation of positronium annihilation in the 2S state: towards a new measurement of the 1S-2S transition frequency
• Geant4 simulation of the PSI LEM beam line: energy loss and muonium formation in thin foils and the impact of unmoderated muons on the $\mu$SR spectrometer

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Mu-MASS (MuoniuM lAser SpectroScopy) experiment
• Science Case for the new High-Intensity Muon Beams HIMB at PSI
• Cavity enhanced DUV laser for two-photon cooling of atomic hydrogen
• Positronium and Muonium 1S-2S Laser Spectroscopy as a Probe for the Standard-Model Extension
• Production and study of antideuterium with the GBAR beamline