Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

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Nature Research, Nature Physics, 7(7), p. 558-564, 2011

DOI: 10.1038/nphys2025

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Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

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 1000 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 CPT symmetry and cooling to temperatures where gravitational effects could become apparent. ; Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures