Observation of the effect of gravity on the motion of antimatter.

Einstein's general theory of relativity from 19151 remains the most successful description of gravitation. From the 1919 solar eclipse2 to the observation of gravitational waves3, the theory has passed many crucial experimental tests. However, the evolving concepts of dark matter and dark energy illustrate that there is much to be learned about the gravitating content of the universe. Singularities in the general theory of relativity and the lack of a quantum theory of gravity suggest that our picture is incomplete. It is thus prudent to explore gravity in exotic physical systems. Antimatter was unknown to Einstein in 1915. Dirac's theory4 appeared in 1928; the positron was observed5 in 1932. There has since been much speculation about gravity and antimatter. The theoretical consensus is that any laboratory mass must be attracted6 by the Earth, although some authors have considered the cosmological consequences if antimatter should be repelled by matter7-10. In the general theory of relativity, the weak equivalence principle (WEP) requires that all masses react identically to gravity, independent of their internal structure. Here we show that antihydrogen atoms, released from magnetic confinement in the ALPHA-g apparatus, behave in a way consistent with gravitational attraction to the Earth. Repulsive 'antigravity' is ruled out in this case. This experiment paves the way for precision studies of the magnitude of the gravitational acceleration between anti-atoms and the Earth to test the WEP.

Ultrasonic thermometry simulation in a random fluctuating medium: Evidence of the acoustic signature of a one-percent temperature difference.

We study the development potential of ultrasonic thermometry in a liquid fluctuating sodium environment similar to that present in a Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor, and thus investigate if and how ultrasonic thermometry could be used to monitor the sodium flow at the outlet of the reactor core. In particular we study if small temperature variations in the sodium flow of e.g. about 1% of the sodium temperature, i.e., about 5°C, can have a reliably-measurable acoustic signature. Since to our knowledge no experimental setups are available for such a study, and considering the practical difficulties of experimentation in sodium, we resort to a numerical technique for full wave propagation called the spectral-element method, which is a highly accurate finite-element method owing to the high-degree basis functions it uses. We obtain clear time-of-flight variations in the case of a small temperature difference of one percent in the case of a static temperature gradient as well as in the presence of a random fluctuation of the temperature field in the turbulent flow. The numerical simulations underline the potential of ultrasonic thermometry in such a context.