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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antihydrogen spectroscopy promises precise tests of the symmetry of matter and antimatter, and can possibly offer new insights into the baryon asymmetry of the universe. Antihydrogen is, however, difficult to synthesize and is produced only in small quantities. The ALPHA collaboration is therefore pursuing a path towards trapping cold antihydrogen to permit the use of precision atomic physics tools to carry out comparisons of antihydrogen and hydrogen. ALPHA has addressed these challenges. Control of the plasma sizes has helped to lower the influence of the multipole field used in the neutral atom trap, and thus lowered the temperature of the created atoms. Finally, the first systematic attempt to identify trapped antihydrogen in our system is discussed. This discussion includes special techniques for fast release of the trapped anti-atoms, as well as a silicon vertex detector to identify antiproton annihilations. The silicon detector reduces the background of annihilations, including background from antiprotons that can be mirror trapped in the fields of the neutral atom trap. A description of how to differentiate between these events and those resulting from trapped antihydrogen atoms is also included. La spectroscopie de l'anti-hydrogène promet des tests précieux de la symétrie entre matière et antimatière dans l'univers. Cependant, l'anti-hydrogène est difficile à synthétiser et il n'est produit qu'en petite quantité. Le groupe de collaborateurs ALPHA poursuit donc des travaux pour capturer de l'anti-hydrogène froid afin de permettre l'utilisation d'outils précis de mesure en physique atomique pour comparer l'anti-hydrogène avec l'hydrogène. Nous montrons comment ALPHA s'est attaqué à cette tâche et comment le contrôle du volume de plasma a aidé à diminuer l'influence des champs multipolaires utilisés dans le piège pour atomes neutres et ainsi abaisser la température des atomes produits. Finalement, nous discutons le premier essai systématique pour identifier l'anti-hydrogène piégé dans notre système. Ceci inclut des techniques spéciales pour relâcher rapidement les anti-atomes piégés, ainsi qu'un détecteur au silicium pour identifier l'annihilation de l'anti-proton. Nous avons utilisé le détecteur au silicium pour réduire le fond d'annihilation, incluant celui produit par les anti-protons qui peuvent être dans le piège miroir des champs du piège à atomes neutres. Nous décrivons aussi comment nous pouvons différentier entre ces événements et ceux qui résultent des atomes d'anti-hydrogène piégés. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A microchannel plate (MCP)/phosphor screen assembly has been used to destructively measure the radial profile of cold, confined antiprotons, electrons, and positrons in the ALPHA experiment, with the goal of using these trapped particles for antihydrogen creation and confinement. The response of the MCP to low energy (10–200 eV, <1 eV spread) antiproton extractions is compared to that of electrons and positrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many antihydrogen trapping schemes, antiprotons held in a short-well Penning–Malmberg trap are released into a longer well. This process necessarily causes the bounce-averaged rotation frequency [formula] of the antiprotons around the trap axis to pass through zero. In the presence of a transverse magnetic multipole, experiments and simulations show that many antiprotons (over 30% in some cases) can be lost to a hitherto unidentified bounce-resonant process when [formula] is close to zero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold antihydrogen has been produced at CERN (Amoretti et al. (Nature, 419, 456 (2002)), Gabrielse et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 213401 (2002))), with the aim of performing a high-precision spectroscopic comparison with hydrogen as a test of the CPT symmetry. Hydrogen, a unique system used for the development of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, has been continuously used to produce high-precision tests of theories and measurements of fundamental constants and can lead to a very sensitive search for CPT violation. After the initial production of cold antihydrogen atoms by the ATHENA group, the ALPHA Collaboration (http://alpha.web.cern.ch/) has set forth on an experiment to trap and perform high-resolution laser spectroscopy on the 1S-2S transition of both atoms. In this contribution, we will review the motivations, goals, techniques, and recent developments towards this fundamental physics test. We present new discussion on predicted lineshapes for the 1S-2S spectroscopy of trapped atoms in a regime not discussed before. Nous avons produit de l’anti-hydrogène au CERN (Amoretti et al. (Nature, 419, 456 (2002)), Gabrielse et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 213401 (2002))), pour faire des comparaisons spectroscopiques de haute précision avec l’hydrogène dans le cadre d’un test de la symétrie CPT. L’hydrogène, qui a joué un rôle unique dans le développement de la mécanique quantique et de l’électrodynamique quantique, a été utilisé continuellement dans des tests de haute précision des théories et des mesures des constantes fondamentales et peut nous conduire à une recherche très précise de la violation CPT. Après que le groupe ATHENA ait produit l’anti-hydrogène froid, l’équipe ALPHA (http://alpha.web.cern.ch/) a développé un montage pour piéger les deux types d’atome et faire des mesures de spectroscopie laser de haute précision des transitions 1S-2S dans les deux types d’atomes. Nous passons ici en revue les motivations, les buts, les techniques et les développements récents de ce test fondamental en physique. Nous présentons de nouvelles idées sur la forme des lignes en spectroscopie 1S-2S pour des atomes piégés dans un régime qui n’a pas encore été discuté. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report results from a novel diagnostic that probes the outer radial profile of trapped antiproton clouds. The diagnostic allows us to determine the profile by monitoring the time history of antiproton losses that occur as an octupole field in the antiproton confinement region is increased. We show several examples of how this diagnostic helps us to understand the radial dynamics of antiprotons in normal and nested Penning–Malmberg traps. Better understanding of these dynamics may aid current attempts to trap antihydrogen atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charges in cold, multiple-species, non-neutral plasmas separate radially by mass, forming centrifugally separated states. Here, we report the first detailed measurements of such states in an electron-antiproton plasma, and the first observations of the separation dynamics in any centrifugally separated system. While the observed equilibrium states are expected and in agreement with theory, the equilibration time is approximately constant over a wide range of parameters, a surprising and as yet unexplained result. Electron-antiproton plasmas play a crucial role in antihydrogen trapping experiments.

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.

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.

Control of the radial profile of trapped antiproton clouds is critical to trapping antihydrogen. We report the first detailed measurements of the radial manipulation of antiproton clouds, including areal density compressions by factors as large as ten, by manipulating spatially overlapped electron plasmas. We show detailed measurements of the near-axis antiproton radial profile and its relation to that of the electron plasma.