| 1. |
- Dion, Claude, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Bimodal momentum distribution of laser-cooled atoms in optical lattices
- 2016
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Ingår i: Physical Review A. Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. - 1050-2947 .- 1094-1622. ; 93:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study, numerically and experimentally, the momentum distribution of atoms cooled in optical lattices. Using semiclassical simulations, we show that this distribution is bimodal, made up of a central feature corresponding to "cold," trapped atoms, with tails of "hot," untrapped atoms, and that this holds true also for very shallow potentials. Careful analysis of the distribution of high-momentum untrapped atoms, both from simulations and experiments, shows that the tails of the distribution do not follow a normal law, hinting at a power-law distribution and nonergodic behavior. We also revisit the phenomenon leading to the existence of an optimal cooling point, i.e., a potential depth below which the temperature of the atoms starts increasing.
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| 2. |
- Yamashita, Takuma, et al.
(författare)
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Four-body Calculation of Inelastic Scattering Cross Sections of Positronium-Antihydrogen Collision
- 2021
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Ingår i: Few-body systems. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0177-7963 .- 1432-5411. ; 62:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We overview our recent calculations of scattering cross sections of positronium–antihydrogen collisions. We discuss the cross sections calculated in the vicinity of the four-body resonances of H¯Ps and above the energy threshold for the formation of the antihydrogen positive ions (H¯+). In the former energy region where a Rydberg series of resonances dominated by the H¯+-e− interaction appears, we show a good agreement between the resonant profiles in the cross sections and the resonance energies calculated by the complex coordinate rotation method. H¯+ production cross sections near the threshold energy are reported for the positronium being initially in the (n, l) states with n≤3, together with all competing elastic/inelastic cross sections. Comparison of our results with the latest continuum distorted wave final state calculation is presented. A qualitative discrepancy concerning the dependence of cross sections on the angular momentum of Ps is indicated.
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| 3. |
- Yamashita, Takuma, et al.
(författare)
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Near-threshold production of antihydrogen positive ion in positronium-antihydrogen collision
- 2021
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Ingår i: New Journal of Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1367-2630. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Near-threshold production of antihydrogen ion (H+) in positronium-antihydrogen collisions is predicted by a rigorous four-body scattering calculation. The convergence of the cross sections for the rearrangement and for all competing reactions (elastic scattering, de/excitation and de/polarization of positronium) is carefully examined against partial waves. The multi-channel scattering solutions are composed of functions that diagonalize the four-body Hamiltonian, and scattering functions that satisfy the correct asymptotic boundary conditions. The production rates of H+ show large discrepancies compared to more approximate calculations.
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| 4. |
- Adrich, P., et al.
(författare)
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Production of antihydrogen atoms by 6 keV antiprotons through a positronium cloud
- 2023
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Ingår i: European Physical Journal C. - : Springer Nature. - 1434-6044 .- 1434-6052. ; 83:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We report on the first production of an antihydrogen beam by charge exchange of 6.1 keV antiprotons with a cloud of positronium in the GBAR experiment at CERN. The 100 keV antiproton beam delivered by the AD/ELENA facility was further decelerated with a pulsed drift tube. A 9 MeV electron beam from a linear accelerator produced a low energy positron beam. The positrons were accumulated in a set of two Penning-Malmberg traps. The positronium target cloud resulted from the conversion of the positrons extracted from the traps. The antiproton beam was steered onto this positronium cloud to produce the antiatoms. We observe an excess over background indicating antihydrogen production with a significance of 3-4 standard deviations.
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| 5. |
- Froelich, Piotr, et al.
(författare)
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Antihydrogen in Interaction with Atoms and Surfaces
- 2005
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Ingår i: AIP Conference Proceedings. - : AIP. - 0094-243X .- 1551-7616. ; 770:1, s. 51-67, s. 51-67
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Anoverview of the antiatom interactions with matter is given inthe context of the ongoing efforts to trap and coolantihydrogen at CERN. We show how the atom-antiatom scattering can,in addition to annihilation, result in a number of collisionalreactions such as elastic scattering, rearrangement to protonium and positronium,and even radiative association leading to formation of unusual short-livedatom-antiatom molecules. We also show that sufficiently cold antiatoms canbe reflected from material walls. The rates for these reactionsare of interest for the experiments with antihydrogen atoms atCERN, they probe the feasibility of collisional cooling of antihydrogenand they contribute to the understanding of stability of matterin contact with antimatter in general.
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| 6. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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An improved limit on the charge of antihydrogen from stochastic acceleration
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 529:7586, s. 373-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antimatter continues to intrigue physicists because of its apparent absence in the observable Universe. Current theory requires that matter and antimatter appeared in equal quantities after the Big Bang, but the Standard Model of particle physics offers no quantitative explanation for the apparent disappearance of half the Universe. It has recently become possible to study trapped atoms(1-4) of antihydrogen to search for possible, as yet unobserved, differences in the physical behaviour of matter and antimatter. Here we consider the charge neutrality of the antihydrogen atom. By applying stochastic acceleration to trapped antihydrogen atoms, we determine an experimental bound on the antihydrogen charge, Qe, of vertical bar Q vertical bar < 0.71 parts per billion (one standard deviation), in which e is the elementary charge. This bound is a factor of 20 less than that determined from the best previous measurement(5) of the antihydrogen charge. The electrical charge of atoms and molecules of normal matter is known(6) to be no greater than about 10(-21)e for a diverse range of species including H-2, He and SF6. Charge-parity-time symmetry and quantum anomaly cancellation(7) demand that the charge of antihydrogen be similarly small. Thus, our measurement constitutes an improved limit and a test of fundamental aspects of the Standard Model. If we assume charge superposition and use the best measured value of the antiproton charge(8), then we can place a new limit on the positron charge anomaly (the relative difference between the positron and elementary charge) of about one part per billion (one standard deviation), a 25-fold reduction compared to the current best measurement(8),(9).
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| 7. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Antihydrogen accumulation for fundamental symmetry tests
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antihydrogen, a positron bound to an antiproton, is the simplest anti-atom. Its structure and properties are expected to mirror those of the hydrogen atom. Prospects for precision comparisons of the two, as tests of fundamental symmetries, are driving a vibrant programme of research. In this regard, a limiting factor in most experiments is the availability of large numbers of cold ground state antihydrogen atoms. Here, we describe how an improved synthesis process results in a maximum rate of 10.5 +/- 0.6 atoms trapped and detected per cycle, corresponding to more than an order of magnitude improvement over previous work. Additionally, we demonstrate how detailed control of electron, positron and antiproton plasmas enables repeated formation and trapping of antihydrogen atoms, with the simultaneous retention of atoms produced in previous cycles. We report a record of 54 detected annihilation events from a single release of the trapped anti-atoms accumulated from five consecutive cycles.
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| 8. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Characterization of the 1S-2S transition in antihydrogen
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 557:7703, s. 71-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 1928, Dirac published an equation(1) that combined quantum mechanics and special relativity. Negative-energy solutions to this equation, rather than being unphysical as initially thought, represented a class of hitherto unobserved and unimagined particles-antimatter. The existence of particles of antimatter was confirmed with the discovery of the positron(2) (or anti-electron) by Anderson in 1932, but it is still unknown why matter, rather than antimatter, survived after the Big Bang. As a result, experimental studies of antimatter(3-7), including tests of fundamental symmetries such as charge-parity and charge-parity-time, and searches for evidence of primordial antimatter, such as antihelium nuclei, have high priority in contemporary physics research. The fundamental role of the hydrogen atom in the evolution of the Universe and in the historical development of our understanding of quantum physics makes its antimatter counterpart-the antihydrogen atom-of particular interest. Current standard-model physics requires that hydrogen and antihydrogen have the same energy levels and spectral lines. The laser-driven 1S-2S transition was recently observed(8) in antihydrogen. Here we characterize one of the hyperfine components of this transition using magnetically trapped atoms of antihydrogen and compare it to model calculations for hydrogen in our apparatus. We find that the shape of the spectral line agrees very well with that expected for hydrogen and that the resonance frequency agrees with that in hydrogen to about 5 kilohertz out of 2.5 x 10(15) hertz. This is consistent with charge-parity-time invariance at a relative precision of 2 x 10(-12)-two orders of magnitude more precise than the previous determination(8)-corresponding to an absolute energy sensitivity of 2 x 10(-20) GeV.
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| 9. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Enhanced Control and Reproducibility of Non-Neutral Plasmas
- 2018
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 120:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The simultaneous control of the density and particle number of non-neutral plasmas confined in Penning-Malmberg traps is demonstrated. Control is achieved by setting the plasma's density by applying a rotating electric field while simultaneously fixing its axial potential via evaporative cooling. This novel method is particularly useful for stabilizing positron plasmas, as the procedures used to collect positrons from radioactive sources typically yield plasmas with variable densities and particle numbers; it also simplifies optimization studies that require plasma parameter scans. The reproducibility achieved by applying this technique to the positron and electron plasmas used by the ALPHA antihydrogen experiment at CERN, combined with other developments, contributed to a 10-fold increase in the antiatom trapping rate.
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| 10. |
- Ahmadi, M., et al.
(författare)
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Investigation of the fine structure of antihydrogen
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 578:7795, s. 375-380
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- At the historic Shelter Island Conference on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in 1947, Willis Lamb reported an unexpected feature in the fine structure of atomic hydrogen: a separation of the 2S(1/2) and 2P(1/2) states(1). The observation of this separation, now known as the Lamb shift, marked an important event in the evolution of modern physics, inspiring others to develop the theory of quantum electrodynamics(2-5). Quantum electrodynamics also describes antimatter, but it has only recently become possible to synthesize and trap atomic antimatter to probe its structure. Mirroring the historical development of quantum atomic physics in the twentieth century, modern measurements on anti-atoms represent a unique approach for testing quantum electrodynamics and the foundational symmetries of the standard model. Here we report measurements of the fine structure in the n = 2 states of antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of the hydrogen atom. Using optical excitation of the 1S-2P Lyman-alpha transitions in antihydrogen(6), we determine their frequencies in a magnetic field of 1 tesla to a precision of 16 parts per billion. Assuming the standard Zeeman and hyperfine interactions, we infer the zero-field fine-structure splitting (2P(1/2)-2P(3/2)) in antihydrogen. The resulting value is consistent with the predictions of quantum electrodynamics to a precision of 2 per cent. Using our previously measured value of the 1S-2S transition frequency(6,7), we find that the classic Lamb shift in antihydrogen (2S(1/2)-2P(1/2) splitting at zero field) is consistent with theory at a level of 11 per cent. Our observations represent an important step towards precision measurements of the fine structure and the Lamb shift in the antihydrogen spectrum as tests of the charge-parity-time symmetry(8) and towards the determination of other fundamental quantities, such as the antiproton charge radius(9,10), in this antimatter system. Precision measurements of the 1S-2P transition in antihydrogen that take into account the standard Zeeman and hyperfine effects confirm the predictions of quantum electrodynamics.
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