| 21. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Observation of the hyperfine spectrum of antihydrogen
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 548:7665, s. 66-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The observation of hyperfine structure in atomic hydrogen by Rabi and co-workers(1-3) and the measurement(4) of the zero-field ground-state splitting at the level of seven parts in 10(13) are important achievements of mid-twentieth-century physics. The work that led to these achievements also provided the first evidence for the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron(5-8), inspired Schwinger's relativistic theory of quantum electrodynamics(9,10) and gave rise to the hydrogen maser(11), which is a critical component of modern navigation, geo-positioning and very-long-baseline interferometry systems. Research at the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN by the ALPHA collaboration extends these enquiries into the antimatter sector. Recently, tools have been developed that enable studies of the hyperfine structure of antihydrogen(12)-the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. The goal of such studies is to search for any differences that might exist between this archetypal pair of atoms, and thereby to test the fundamental principles on which quantum field theory is constructed. Magnetic trapping of antihydrogen atoms(13,14) provides a means of studying them by combining electromagnetic interaction with detection techniques that are unique to antimatter(12,15). Here we report the results of a microwave spectroscopy experiment in which we probe the response of antihydrogen over a controlled range of frequencies. The data reveal clear and distinct signatures of two allowed transitions, from which we obtain a direct, magnetic-field-independent measurement of the hyperfine splitting. From a set of trials involving 194 detected atoms, we determine a splitting of 1,420.4 +/- 0.5 megahertz, consistent with expectations for atomic hydrogen at the level of four parts in 10(4). This observation of the detailed behaviour of a quantum transition in an atom of antihydrogen exemplifies tests of fundamental symmetries such as charge-parity-time in antimatter, and the techniques developed here will enable more-precise such tests.
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| 22. |
- Amole, C., et al.
(författare)
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Discriminating between antihydrogen and mirror-trapped antiprotons in a minimum-B trap
- 2012
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Ingår i: New Journal of Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1367-2630. ; 14, s. 015010-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recently, antihydrogen atoms were trapped at CERN in a magnetic minimum (minimum-B) trap formed by superconducting octupole and mirror magnet coils. The trapped antiatoms were detected by rapidly turning off these magnets, thereby eliminating the magnetic minimum and releasing any antiatoms contained in the trap. Once released, these antiatoms quickly hit the trap wall, whereupon the positrons and antiprotons in the antiatoms annihilate. The antiproton annihilations produce easily detected signals; we used these signals to prove that we trapped antihydrogen. However, our technique could be confounded by mirror-trapped antiprotons, which would produce seemingly identical annihilation signals upon hitting the trap wall. In this paper, we discuss possible sources of mirror-trapped antiprotons and show that antihydrogen and antiprotons can be readily distinguished, often with the aid of applied electric fields, by analyzing the annihilation locations and times. We further discuss the general properties of antiproton and antihydrogen trajectories in this magnetic geometry, and reconstruct the antihydrogen energy distribution from the measured annihilation time history.
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| 23. |
- Amole, C., et al.
(författare)
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Silicon vertex detector upgrade in the ALPHA experiment
- 2013
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 732, s. 134-136
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) is the main diagnostic tool in the ALPHA-experiment. It provides precise spatial and timing information of antiproton (antihydrogen) annihilation events (vertices), and most importantly, the SVD is capable of directly identifying and analysing single annihilation events, thereby forming the basis of ALPHA's analysis. This paper describes the ALPHA SVD and its upgrade, installed in the ALPHA's new neutral atom trap.
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| 24. |
- Amole, C., et al.
(författare)
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The ALPHA antihydrogen trapping apparatus
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 735, s. 319-340
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ALPHA collaboration, based at CERN, has recently succeeded in confining cold antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic minimum neutral atom trap and has performed the first study of a resonant transition of the anti-atoms. The ALPHA apparatus will be described herein, with emphasis on the structural aspects, diagnostic methods and techniques that have enabled antihydrogen trapping and experimentation to be achieved.
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| 25. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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Antihydrogen annihilation reconstruction with the ALPHA silicon detector
- 2012
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 684, s. 73-81
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ALPHA experiment has succeeded in trapping antihydrogen, a major milestone on the road to spectroscopic comparisons of antihydrogen with hydrogen. An annihilation vertex detector, which determines the time and position of antiproton annihilations, has been central to this achievement. This detector, an array of double-sided silicon microstrip detector modules arranged in three concentric cylindrical tiers, is sensitive to the passage of charged particles resulting from antiproton annihilation. This article describes the method used to reconstruct the annihilation location and to distinguish the annihilation signal from the cosmic ray background. Recent experimental results using this detector are outlined.
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| 26. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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Autoresonant Excitation of Antiproton Plasmas
- 2011
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 106:2, s. 025002-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We demonstrate controllable excitation of the center-of-mass longitudinal motion of a thermal antiproton plasma using a swept-frequency autoresonant drive. When the plasma is cold, dense, and highly collective in nature, we observe that the entire system behaves as a single-particle nonlinear oscillator, as predicted by a recent theory. In contrast, only a fraction of the antiprotons in a warm plasma can be similarly excited. Antihydrogen was produced and trapped by using this technique to drive antiprotons into a positron plasma, thereby initiating atomic recombination
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| 27. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds
- 2011
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Ingår i: Nature Physics. - 1745-2473 .- 1745-2481. ; 7:7, s. 558-564
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Atoms made of a particle and an antiparticle are unstable, usually surviving less than a microsecond. Antihydrogen, made entirely of antiparticles, is believed to be stable, and it is this longevity that holds the promise of precision studies of matter-antimatter symmetry. We have recently demonstrated trapping of antihydrogen atoms by releasing them after a confinement time of 172 ms. A critical question for future studies is: how long can anti-atoms be trapped? Here, we report the observation of anti-atom confinement for 1,000 s, extending our earlier results by nearly four orders of magnitude. Our calculations indicate that most of the trapped anti-atoms reach the ground state. Further, we report the first measurement of the energy distribution of trapped antihydrogen, which, coupled with detailed comparisons with simulations, provides a key tool for the systematic investigation of trapping dynamics. These advances open up a range of experimental possibilities, including precision studies of charge-parity-time reversal symmetry and cooling to temperatures where gravitational effects could become apparent.
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| 28. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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Evaporative Cooling of Antiprotons to Cryogenic Temperatures
- 2010
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 105:1, s. 013003-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report the application of evaporative cooling to clouds of trapped antiprotons, resulting in plasmas with measured temperature as low as 9 K. We have modeled the evaporation process for charged particles using appropriate rate equations. Good agreement between experiment and theory is observed, permitting prediction of cooling efficiency in future experiments. The technique opens up new possibilities for cooling of trapped ions and is of particular interest in antiproton physics, where a precise CPT test on trapped antihydrogen is a long-standing goal.
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| 29. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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Search for trapped antihydrogen
- 2011
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Ingår i: Physics Letters B. - : Elsevier BV. - 0370-2693 .- 1873-2445. ; 695:1-4, s. 95-104
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results of an experiment to search for trapped antihydrogen atoms with the ALPHA antihydrogen trap at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator. Sensitive diagnostics of the temperatures, sizes, and densities of the trapped antiproton and positron plasmas have been developed, which in turn permitted development of techniques to precisely and reproducibly control the initial experimental parameters. The use of a position-sensitive annihilation vertex detector, together with the capability of controllably quenching the superconducting magnetic minimum trap, enabled us to carry out a high-sensitivity and low-background search for trapped synthesised antihydrogen atoms. We aim to identify the annihilations of antihydrogen atoms held for at least 130 ms in the trap before being released over ~30 ms. After a three-week experimental run in 2009 involving mixing of 107 antiprotons with 1.3ￜ109 positrons to produce 6ￜ105 antihydrogen atoms, we have identified six antiproton annihilation events that are consistent with the release of trapped antihydrogen. The cosmic ray background, estimated to contribute 0.14 counts, is incompatible with this observation at a significance of 5.6 sigma. Extensive simulations predict that an alternative source of annihilations, the escape of mirror-trapped antiprotons, is highly unlikely, though this possibility has not yet been ruled out experimentally.
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| 30. |
- Andresen, G. B., et al.
(författare)
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The ALPHA-detector : Module Production and Assembly
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Instrumentation. - 1748-0221 .- 1748-0221. ; 7, s. C01051-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ALPHA is one of the experiments situated at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator (AD). A Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) is placed to surround the ALPHA atom trap. The main purpose of the SVD is to detect and locate antiproton annihilation events by means of the emitted charged pions. The SVD system is presented with special focus given to the design, fabrication and performance of the modules.
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