Ultra cold neutrons: determination of the electric dipole moment and gravitational corrections via matter wave interferometry

Abstract

We propose experiments using ultra cold neutrons which can be used to determine the electric dipole moment of the neutron itself, a well as to test corrections to gravity as they are foreseen by string theories and KaluzaKlein mechanisms.Matter Wave Interferometry Devices (MWID) are aimed at testing one of the important pilars of quantum mechanics, namely wave-like interference of matter. These devices use the idea that quantum mechanical interference results in diffraction patterns of the intensity, which critically depend on the relative phase of the interfering waves. This allows the extraction of useful information about the phase generating, refractive-diffractive medium through which the wave propagates.There are two main questions we are concerned with here, which appear in the context of grand unification and superstring theories. The first is that within grand unified theories with supersymmetry there are several plausible contributions to the electric dipole moments of eletrons and neutrons [1, 2], a problem known as the SUSY CP problem. CP violation is very little known, and the violating parameters, especially the neutron and the eletron electric dipole moments should be tested.