Swansea physicists drive antihydrogen breakthrough at CERN with report trapping approach

Physicists from Swansea University have performed the main position in a scientific breakthrough at CERN, growing an progressive approach that will increase the antihydrogen trapping price by an element of ten.

The development, achieved as a part of the worldwide Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) collaboration, has been published in Nature Communications and will assist reply one of many largest questions in physics: why is there such a big imbalance between matter and antimatter? According to the Big Bang concept, equal quantities have been created at the start of the Universe, so why is the world round us made virtually solely of matter?

Antihydrogen is the “mirror version” of hydrogen, comprised of an antiproton and a positron. Trapping and finding out it helps scientists discover how antimatter behaves, and whether or not it follows the identical guidelines as matter.

Producing and trapping antihydrogen is an especially sophisticated course of. Previous strategies took 24 hours to lure simply 2,000 atoms, limiting the scope of experiments at ALPHA. The Swansea-led staff has modified that.

Using laser-cooled beryllium ions, the staff has demonstrated that it’s potential to chill positrons to lower than 10 Kelvin (beneath –263°C), considerably colder than the earlier threshold of about 15 Kelvin. These cooler positrons dramatically enhance the effectivity of antihydrogen manufacturing and trapping—permitting a report 15,000 atoms to be trapped in underneath seven hours.

This marks a brand new period at ALPHA, increasing the vary of potential experiments and enabling extra exact assessments of basic physics, together with how antimatter responds to gravity and whether or not it obeys the identical symmetries as matter.

Professor Niels Madsen from the School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics, lead writer of the research and Deputy Spokesperson for ALPHA, mentioned: “It’s more than a decade since I first realised that this was the way forward, so it’s incredibly gratifying to see the spectacular outcome that will lead to many new exciting measurements on antihydrogen.”

Maria Gonçalves, a number one PhD scholar on the challenge, added: “This result was the culmination of many years of hard work. The first successful attempt instantly improved the previous method by a factor of two, giving us 36 antihydrogen atoms—my new favourite number! It was a very exciting project to be a part of, and I’m looking forward to seeing what pioneering measurements this technique has made possible.”

Dr Kurt Thompson, a number one researcher on the challenge, mentioned: “This fantastic achievement was accomplished by the dedication and collaborative efforts of many Swansea graduate students, summer students and researchers over the past decade. It represents a major paradigm shift in the capabilities of antihydrogen research. Experiments that used to take months can now be performed in a single day.”

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