Test of the Pauli exclusion principle in the VIP-2 underground experiment

Abstract

The validity of the Pauli exclusion principle-a building block of Quantum Mechanics-is tested for electrons. The VIP (violation of Pauli exclusion principle) and its follow-up VIP-2 experiments at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso search for X-rays from copper atomic transitions that are prohibited by the Pauli exclusion principle. The candidate events-if they exist-originate from the transition of a 2p orbit electron to the ground state which is already occupied by two electrons. The present limit on the probability for Pauli exclusion principle violation for electrons set by the VIP experiment is 4.7 × 10-29. We report a first result from the VIP-2 experiment improving on the VIP limit, which solidifies the final goal of achieving a two orders of magnitude gain in the long run.