Testing the equivalence principle with unstable particles

In the summer of 2010, I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Dennis Krause at Wabash College on a project he was considering attempting a theoretical treatment of interference of quantum unstable particles (QuUP). This publication eventually came out of this project.

Abstract

We develop a framework to test the equivalence principle under conditions where the quantum aspects of nature cannot be neglected, specifically in the context of interference phenomena with unstable particles. We derive the nonrelativistic quantum equation that describes the evolution of the wave function of unstable particles under the assumption of the validity of the equivalence principle and when small deviations are assumed to occur. As an example, we study the propagation of unstable particles in a COW experiment, and we briefly discuss the experimental implications of our formalism.

Citation

Y. Bonder, E. Fischbach, H. Hernandez-Coronado, D. E. Krause, Z. Rohrbach, and D. Sudarsky. “Testing the equivalence principle with unstable particles.” Phys. Rev. D 87, 125021 (2013)