Measuring gravitational effects on antimatter in space

¹ University of Molise
² INFN Lecce
³ INAF Milano
⁴ Boston University
⁵ INFN Pisa

^a e-mail: nanni.piacentino@gmail.com, giovanni.piacentino@unimol.it, nannip@le.infn.it

Published online: 12 April 2017

Abstract

A direct measurement of the gravitational acceleration of antimatter has never been performed to date. Recently, such an experiment has been proposed, using antihydrogen with an atom interferometer and an antihydrogen confinament has been realized at CERN. In alternative we propose an experimental test of the gravitational interaction with antimatter by measuring the branching fraction of the CP violating decay of K_L in space. In fact, even if the theoretical Standard Model explains the CPV with the presence of pure phase in the KMC Kobaiashi-Maskava-Cabibbo matrix, ample room is left for contributions by other interactions and forces to generate CPV in the mixing of the neutral K and B mesons. Gravitation is a good candidate and we show that at the altitude of the International Space Station, gravitational effects may change the level of CP violation such that a 5 sigma discrimination may be obtained by collecting the K_L produced by the cosmic proton flux within a few years.