Investigating the gravitational coupling of leptons via precision measurements of G

Abstract

In recent decades, the precision of gravitational constant measurements has signifi-cantly improved. In this letter, we propose a method that takes advantage of the improved precision to measure in the laboratory whether leptons generate gravity in the same way as baryons. If leptons did not generate gravity, there would be a fractional difference in the value of the gravitational constant G expected for two different materials with different \(\frac{Z}{A}\) ratios, where A and Z represent the mass and atomic number, respectively. We propose suitable pairs of materials where such a difference could be detected at about \(4 \sigma \) level given the precision in the present measurements of G.