January 1, 2021 Journal article Open Access

HIGH SENSITIVITY QUANTUM MECHANICS TESTS IN THE COSMIC SILENCE

Piscicchia, Kristian; Pichler, Andreas; Amirkhani, Aidin; Bartalucci, Sergio; Bertolucci, Sergio; Bazzi, Massimiliano; Bragadireanu, Mario; Cargnelli, Michael; Clozza, Alberto; Curceanu, Catalina; Del Grande, Raffaele; De Paolis, Luca; Egger, Jean Pierre; Fiorini, Carlo; Guaraldo, Carlo; Iliescu, Mihai; Laubenstein, Matthias; Marton, Johann; Miliucci, Marco; Milotti, Edoardo; Pietreanu, Dorel; Scordo, Alessandro; Shi, Hexi; Sirghi, Diana Laura; Sirghi, Florin; Sperandio, Laura; Vazquez Doce, Oton; Zmeskal, Johann

The VIP experiment aims to perform high-precision tests of the Pauli Exclusion Principle for electrons in the extremely low cosmic background environment of the Underground Gran Sasso Laboratories of INFN (Italy).
The experimental technique consists in introducing a DC current in a copper conductor, searching for K α PEP-forbidden atomic transitions when the K shell is already occupied by two electrons. The results of a preliminary data analysis, corresponding to the first run of the VIP-2 data taking (2016–2017), are presented. The experimental setup in the final configuration is described together with preliminary spectra from the 2019 data-taking campaign.