Quantum reflection of antihydrogen from a liquid helium film

: Crepin PP, Kupriyanova EA, Guerout R, Lambrecht A, Nesvizhevsky VV, Reynaud S, Vasiliev S, Voronin AY

Publisher: EPL ASSOCIATION, EUROPEAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

: 2017

: EPL

: EPL-EUROPHYS LETT

: ARTN 33001

: 119

: 3

: 6

: 0295-5075

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/119/33001

We study the quantum reflection of ultracold antihydrogen atoms bouncing on the surface of a liquid helium film. The Casimir-Polder potential and quantum reflection are calculated for different thicknesses of the film supported by different substrates. Antihydrogen can be protected from annihilation for as long as 1.3 s on a bulk of liquid He-4, and 1.7 s for liquid He-3. These large lifetimes open interesting perspectives for spectroscopic measurements of the free fall acceleration of antihydrogen. Variation of the scattering length with the thickness of a film of helium shows interferences which we interpret through a Liouville transformation of the quantum reflection problem. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2017