Experimental tests of quantum mechanics:
Pauli Exclusion Principle and spontaneous collapse models

Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell’INFN

Experimental undergoing tests of the Pauli Exclusion Principle violation will be presented, together with future plans to measure the spontaneous emission of X rays predicted in collapse models (CSL).
We present a method of searching for possible small violations of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (PEP) for electrons, through the search for "anomalous" X-ray transitions in copper atoms, produced by "fresh" electrons (brought inside the copper bar by circulating current) which can have the probability to do the Pauli-forbidden transition to the 1 s level already occupied by two electrons. We describe, then, the VIP (VIolation of PEP) experiment, in data taking since 2006 at the Gran Sasso underground laboratories.
The goal of VIP is to test the PEP for electrons with unprecedented accuracy, down to a limit in the probability that PEP is violated at the level of 10**-29 - 10**-30, improving the previous limit by 3-4 orders of magnitude.
We report preliminary experimental results and briefly discuss some of the implications of a possible violation, together with future plans to gain other about 2 orders of magnitude in the estimation of the probability of PEP violation.
We will then present a project to use a similar experimental technique to measure the spontaneously emitted X rays predicted in the framework of collapse models (GRW theory, dynamical reduction models). Such models were put forward alternatively to the "standard" quantum mechanics' Schrodinger equation, followed by a "alla von Neumann" collapse of the wave-function, implementing a (nonrelativistic) dynamical reduction/collapse models, by modifying with a non-linear and stochastic terms the Schrodinger equation. Baring on the importance of this conceptually new model(s), it is of utmost importance to study its experimental consequences, where the predictions are diverging from the standard equations, and to perform dedicated experiments to check it.
Today there are very few and far from complete experimental information. We aim to perform a feasibility study for a dedicated experiment to check the collapse models.

Catalina Oana Curceanu

Catalina Oana Curceanu is Primo Ricercatore (equivalent with Assistant Professor) at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati dell’INFN, Frascati (Roma), Italy, where she’s working since 1991. She’s leading a research group working in the field of experimental particle and nuclear physics. The main research interests of Catalina Curceanu are in the field of quantum mechanics and foundations, being she the Spokesperson of the VIP experiment searching for violation of Pauli Exclusion Principle at the underground LNGS-INFN laboratory, and in the low-energy QCD in the strangeness sector, where she is the INFN Responsible for the SIDDHARTA experiment on the DAFNE Accelerator of LNF-INFN measuring kaonic atoms and Spokesperson of the AMADEUS Collaboration, a proposal of an experiment to accurately measure the low-energy kaon-nuclei interaction(s). Catalina Curceanu is the INFN responsible of three EU programs in the framework of FP7 HadronPhysics2 and 3 projects and Italian Representative for the COST MP 1006 EU program in the field of Quantum Mechanics. She is author or co-author of more than 150 scientific refereed papers and organized various conferences in the field of particle and nuclear physics and in quantum mechanics sector. Last but not least, she’s pursuing an intense dissemination activity of physics and science in general.