Whispering-gallery states of antihydrogen near a curved surface

We predict the existence of antihydrogen atom long-living quasistationary states, localized near a curved material surface due to quantum reflection from the van der Waals–Casimir potential. Such states are an atom-wave analog of the whispering-gallery (WG) modes, known in acoustics, optics, and neutron physics. We argue that the WG states of antihydrogen atoms could be regarded as a close analog of recently predicted gravitational states of antihydrogen where the centrifugal potential plays the role of the linear gravitational potential. We point out a method for the precision measurement of anti-atom-matter interactions, based on the study of interference of WG antihydrogen states.

Figure 1

The reflection coefficient from the CP–vdW interaction potential as a function of the incident (radial) energy.