Muonium: How Antimatter Falls in Gravity ⚡ экспресс
Einstein said everything falls at the same rate. Testing this for particles made of second-generation matter had been impossible until now. The authors created a record-bright beam of muonium (a bound state of an antimuon and an electron) from superfluid helium, using its unique transport properties. The atoms shoot out of the helium like bullets from a barrel, with a very narrow velocity spread (a superthermal beam) and sufficient intensity. This paves the way for the first direct test of the weak equivalence principle for second-generation antimatter and precise measurement of muonium's gravitational acceleration.
Every object in a vacuum falls with the same acceleration — that's the foundation of Einstein's gravity Einstein. But so far, this rule has only been tested on particles of ordinary matter. Now muonium enters the game: an exotic atom where the nucleus is an antimuon and the shell is an ordinary electron. This hybrid lives for two microseconds; trapping it into a dense beam seemed like science fiction.
The solution lies in superfluid helium. Its thin film, free of friction, acts like a catapult factory. Muons piercing through it strip off electrons, and these fly out as a single 'plug'. The swarm's speed is about 2180 m/s, and all particles race nearly identically, like a gunshot.
The main goal is to measure their acceleration of fall for the first time with percent-level precision. A deviation would mean a crack in physics. And along the way, the cold beam will allow more precise weighing of the muon and testing theory with spectroscopy.
🎯 Superfluid helium flows through pores without friction, pulling out the short-lived muonium into a neat beam — like a quantum illusionist.