Antiproton

Decelerator

CERNs AD with the ALPHA, ASACUSA and ATRAP

collaborations.

The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) is a

storage ring at the CERN laboratory near
Geneva.[1] It was built as a successor to
the Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR)
and started operation in the year 2000.
Antiprotons are created by impinging a
proton beam from the Proton
Synchrotron on a metal target. The AD
decelerates the resultant antiprotons to
an energy of 5.3 MeV, which are then
ejected to one of several connected
experiments.
CERN
accelerator complex

List of current particle

accelerators at CERN

Linac2 Accelerates protons

Linac3 Accelerates ions

Linac4 Accelerates negative

hydrogen ions

AD Decelerates
antiprotons

LHC Collide protons or lead

ions

LEIR Accelerates lead ions

PS Accelerates particles

PSB Accelerates protons

SPS Accelerates protons
and lead ions

ELENA
ELENA (Extra Low ENergy Antiproton) is
a 30 m hexagonal storage ring situated
inside the AD complex.[2][3] It is designed
to further decelerate the antiproton beam
to an energy of 0.1 MeV for more precise
measurements.[4] The first beam
circulated ELENA on 18 November
2016.[5] The ring is expected to be fully
operational in 2018. GBAR will be the first
experiment to use a beam from ELENA,
with the rest of the AD experiments
following suit in 2019-2020.
AD experiments
AD experiments
Experiment Codename Spokesperson Title Proposed Approved Began Comple

Antihydrogen
Alberto production 20 Oct 12 Jun 6 Apr 16 No
AD1 ATHENA
Rotondi and precision 1996 1997 2001 2004
experiments

Cold
antihydrogen 12
Gerald 25 Mar 12 Jun
AD2 ATRAP for precise Feb Runnin
Gabrielse 1997 1997
laser 2002
spectroscopy

Atomic
spectroscopy 12
7 Oct 20 Nov
AD3 ASACUSA Ryugo Hayano and collisions Feb Runnin
1997 1997
using slow 2002
antiprotons

Relative
biological
effectiveness 26
Michael 21 Aug 6 Feb 24 Se
AD4 ACE and peripheral Jan
Holzscheiter 2002 2003 2013
damage of 2004
antiproton
annihilation

Antihydrogen 18
Jeffrey 21 Sep 2 Jun
AD5 ALPHA laser physics Apr Runnin
Hangst 2004 2005
apparatus 2008

Antihydrogen
experiment 28
8 Jun 5 Dec
AD6 AEgIS Michael Doser gravity Sep Runnin
2007 2008
interferometry 2014
spectroscopy

Gravitational
Behaviour of
30 Sep 30 May
AD7 GBAR Patrice Perez Anti- ?? Preparat
2011 2012
Hydrogen at
Rest
 AD8 BASE Stefan Ulmer Baryon Apr 2013 5 Jun 9 Sep Runnin
Antibaryon 2013 2014
Symmetry
Experiment

ATHENA
ATHENA was an antimatter research
project that took place at the Antiproton
Decelerator. In August 2002, it was the
first experiment to produce 50,000 low-
energy antihydrogen atoms, as reported
in Nature.[6][7] In 2005, ATHENA was
disbanded and many of the former
members worked on the subsequent
ALPHA experiment.

ATHENA physics
The ATHENA apparatus comprises four
main subsystems: the antiproton
catching trap, the positron accumulator,
the antiproton/positron mixing trap, and
the antihydrogen annihilation detector.
All traps in the experiment are variations
on the Penning trap, which uses an axial
magnetic field to transversely confine the
charged particles, and a series of hollow
cylindrical electrodes to trap them axially
(Fig. 1a). The catching and mixing traps
are adjacent to each other, and coaxial
with a 3 T magnetic field from a
superconducting solenoid. The positron
accumulator has its own magnetic
system, also a solenoid, of 0.14 T. A
separate cryogenic heat exchanger in the
bore of the superconducting magnet
cools the catching and mixing traps to
about 15 K. The ATHENA apparatus
features an open, modular design that
allows great experimental flexibility,
particularly in introducing large numbers
of positrons into the apparatus.

The catching trap slows, traps, cools, and

accumulates antiprotons. To cool
antiprotons, the catching trap is first
loaded with 3 × 108 electrons, which cool
by synchrotron radiation in the 3 T
magnetic field. Typically, the AD delivers
2 × 107 antiprotons having kinetic energy
5.3 MeV and a pulse duration of 200 ns
to the experiment at 100 s intervals. The
antiprotons are slowed in a thin foil and
trapped using a pulsed electric field. The
antiprotons lose energy and equilibrate
with the cold electrons by Coulomb
interaction. The electrons are ejected
before mixing the antiprotons with
positrons. Each AD shot results in about
3 × 103 cold antiprotons for interaction
experiments. The positron accumulator
slows, traps and accumulates positrons
emitted from a radioactive source
(1.4 × 109 Bq Na22). Accumulation for
300 s yields 1.5 × 108 positrons, 50% of
which are successfully transferred to the
mixing trap, where they cool by
synchrotron radiation.
The mixing trap has the axial potential
configuration of a nested Penning trap
(Fig. 1b), which permits two plasmas of
opposite charge to come into contact. In
ATHENA, the spheroidal positron cloud
can be characterized by exciting and
detecting axial plasma oscillations.
Typical conditions are: 7 × 107 stored
positrons, a radius of 2 – 2.5 mm, a
length of 32 mm, and a maximum density
of 2.5 × 108 cm−3. Key to the
observations reported here is the
antihydrogen annihilation detector (Fig.
1a), situated coaxially with the mixing
region, between the trap outer radius and
the magnet bore. The detector is
designed to provide unambiguous
evidence for antihydrogen production by
detecting the temporally and spatially
coincident annihilations of the antiproton
and positron when a neutral antihydrogen
atom escapes the electromagnetic trap
and strikes the trap electrodes. An
antiproton typically annihilates into a few
charged or neutral pions. The charged
pions are detected by two layers of
double-sided, position sensitive, silicon
microstrips. The path of a charged
particle passing through both layers can
be reconstructed, and two or more
intersecting tracks allow determination
of the position, or vertex, of the
antiproton annihilation. The uncertainty
in vertex determination is approximately
4 mm and is dominated by the
unmeasured curvature of the charged
pions’ trajectories in the magnetic field.
The temporal coincidence window is
approximately 5 microseconds. The solid
angle coverage of the interaction region
is about 80% of 4π.

A positron annihilating with an electron

yields two or three photons. The positron
detector, comprising 16 rows each
containing 12 scintillating, pure CsI
crystals, is designed to detect the two-
photon events, consisting of two 511 keV
photons which are always emitted back-
to-back. The energy resolution of the
detector is 18% FWHM at 511 keV, and
the photo-peak detection efficiency for
single photons is about 20%. The
maximum readout rate of the whole
detector is about 40 Hz. Ancillary
detectors include large scintillator
paddles external to the magnet, and a
thin, position sensitive, silicon diode
through which the incident antiproton
beam passes before entering the
catching trap. To produce antihydrogen
atoms, a positron well in the mixing
region is filled with about 7 × 107
positrons and allowed to cool to the
ambient temperature (15 K). The nested
trap is then formed around the positron
well. Next, approximately 104 antiprotons
are launched into the mixing region by
pulsing the trap from one potential
configuration (dashed line, Fig. 1b) to
another (solid line). The mixing time is
190 s, after which all particles are
dumped and the process repeated.
Events triggering the imaging silicon
detector (three sides hit in the outer
layer) initiate readout of both the silicon
and the CsI modules.

Using this method, ATHENA could

produce - for the first time - several
thousands of cold antihydrogen atoms in
2002. [8]

ATHENA collaboration
The ATHENA collaboration comprised
the following institutions:[9]

Aarhus University, Denmark

University of Brescia, Italy
CERN
University of Genoa, Italy
University of Pavia, Italy
RIKEN, Japan
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
Swansea University, UK
University of Tokyo, Japan
University of Zurich, Switzerland
National Institute for Nuclear Physics,
Italy
ATRAP
The ATRAP collaboration at CERN
developed out of TRAP, a collaboration
whose members pioneered cold
antiprotons, cold positrons, and first
made the ingredients of cold
antihydrogen to interact. ATRAP
members also pioneered accurate
hydrogen spectroscopy and first
observed hot antihydrogen atoms.

Positron production and

accumulation

ATRAP is a collaboration between

physicists around the world with the goal
of creating and experimenting with
antihydrogen. ATRAP accumulates
positrons emitted from a radioactive
22Na source. There are two effective
ways to slow down the fast positrons by
inelastic processes. The ATRAP
collaboration initially chose a different
method to ATHENA. The positrons which
were emitted by the 22Na were first
slowed down with a 10 µm thick titanium
foil and then passed through a 2 µm
thick tungsten crystal. Within the crystal
there is a possibility that a positively
charged positron and a negatively
charged electron form a Rydberg
Positronium atom. In this process, the
positrons lose much of their energy so
that it is no longer necessary (as in
ATHENA) to decelerate further with
collisions in gas. When the loosely bound
Rydberg positronium atom reaches the
Penning trap at the end of the apparatus,
it is ionized and the positron is caught in
the trap.

Since this method of positron

accumulation was not particularly
efficient, ATRAP switched to a Surko-type
buffer gas accumulator as is now
standard in experiments requiring large
numbers of positrons.[10] This has led to
the storage of the largest ever number of
positrons in an Ioffe trap.[11]

Unlike ATHENA, ATRAP has not yet been

terminated and can be continuously
improved and expanded. ATRAP now has
a Ioffe trap, which can store the
electrically neutral antihydrogen using a
magnetic quadrupole field. This is
possible because the magnetic moment
of antihydrogen is non-zero. It is intended
that laser spectroscopy will be
performed on antihydrogen stored in the
Ioffe trap.

ATRAP collaboration

The ATRAP collaboration comprises the

following institutions:

Harvard University, USA

York University, Canada
 University of Mainz, Germany
Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

ASACUSA
ASACUSA (Atomic Spectroscopy And
Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons) is an
experiment testing for CPT-symmetry by
laser spectroscopy of antiprotonic
helium and microwave spectroscopy of
the hyperfine structure of antihydrogen. It
also measures atomic and nuclear cross
sections of antiprotons on various
targets at extremely low energies.[12] The
spokesperson for the experiment is
Ryugo S. Hayano from the University of
Tokyo. It was originally proposed in
1997.[13][14]
ACE
The Antiproton Cell Experiment (ACE)
started in 2003. It aims to assess fully
the effectiveness and suitability of
antiprotons for cancer therapy.[15]

ALPHA

ALPHA Logo

The ALPHA experiment is designed to

trap neutral antihydrogen in a magnetic
trap, and conduct experiments on them.
The ultimate goal of this endeavour is to
test CPT symmetry through comparison
of the atomic spectra of hydrogen and
antihydrogen (see hydrogen spectral
series).[16] The ALPHA collaboration
consists of some former members of the
ATHENA collaboration (the first group to
produce cold antihydrogen, in 2002), as
well as a number of new members.

ALPHA physics

ALPHA faces several challenges.

Magnetic traps – wherein neutral atoms
are trapped using their magnetic
moments – are notoriously weak; only
atoms with kinetic energies equivalent to
less than one kelvin may be trapped. The
cold antihydrogen created first in 2002 by
the ATHENA and the ATRAP
collaborations was produced by merging
cold plasmas of positrons (also called
antielectrons) and antiprotons. While this
method has been quite successful, it
creates antiatoms with kinetic energies
too large to be trapped. Furthermore, to
do laser spectroscopy on these anti-
atoms, it is important that they are in
their ground state, something which does
not seem to be the case for the majority
of the anti-atoms created thus far.

Antiprotons are received by the

Antiproton Decelerator and are 'mixed'
with positrons from a specially-designed
positron accumulator in a versatile
Penning trap. The central region where
the mixing and thus antihydrogen
formation takes place is surrounded by a
superconducting octupole magnet and
two axially separated short solenoids
"mirror-coils" to form a "minimum-B"
magnetic trap. Once trapped
antihydrogen can be subjected to
detailed study and be compared to
hydrogen.

In order to detect trapped antihydrogen

atoms ALPHA also comprises a silicon
vertex detector. This cylindrically shaped
detector consists of three layers of
silicon panels (strips). Each panel acts as
a position sensitive detector for charged
particles passing through. By recording
how the panels are excited ALPHA can
reconstruct the tracks of charged
particles traveling through their detector.
When an antiproton annihilates
(disintegrates) the process typically
results in the emission of 3-4 charged
pions. These can be observed by the
ALPHA detector and by reconstructing
their tracks through the detector their
origin, and thus the location of the
annihilation, can be determined. These
tracks are quite distinct from the tracks
of cosmic rays which are also detected
but are of high energy and pass straight
through the detector. By carefully
analyzing the tracks ALPHA
distinguishes between cosmic rays and
antiproton annihilations.

To detect successful trapping the ALPHA

trap magnet that created the minimum B-
field was designed to allow it to be
quickly and repeatedly de-energized. The
currents' decay during de-energization
has a characteristic time of 9 ms, orders
of magnitude faster than similar
systems. This fast turn-off and the ability
to suppress false signal from cosmic
rays should allow ALPHA to detect the
release of even a single trapped
antihydrogen atom during de-
energization of the trap.

In order to make antihydrogen cold

enough to be trapped the ALPHA
collaboration has implemented a novel
technique, well known from atomic
physics, called evaporative cooling.[17]
The motivation for this is that one of the
main challenges of trapping
antihydrogen is to make it cold enough.
State-of-the art minimum-B traps like the
one ALPHA comprises have depths in
temperature units of order one Kelvin. As
no readily available techniques exist to
cool antihydrogen, the constituents must
be cold and kept cold for the formation.
Antiprotons and positrons are not easily
cooled to cryogenic temperatures and
the implementation of evaporative
cooling is thus an important step
towards antihydrogen trapping.

ALPHA is presently studying the

gravitational properties of antimatter.[18]
A preliminary experiment in 2013 found
that the gravitational mass of
antihydrogen atoms was between -65
and 110 times their inertial mass, leaving
considerable room for refinement using
larger numbers of colder antihydrogen
atoms.[19][20]

ALPHA collaboration
The ALPHA collaboration comprises the
following institutions:

Aarhus University, Denmark

University of British Columbia, Canada
University of California, Berkeley, USA
University of Calgary, Canada
University of Liverpool, UK
University of Manitoba, Canada
Negev Nuclear Research Center, Israel
Purdue University, USA
RIKEN, Japan
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
Swansea University, UK
 University of Tokyo, Japan
York University, Canada
TRIUMF, Canada

AEgIS
AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: gravity,
Interferometry, Spectroscopy), is an
experiment currently being set up at the
Antiproton Decelerator.

AEgIS physics

AEgIS would attempt to determine if

gravity affects antimatter in the same
way it affects matter by testing its effect
on an antihydrogen beam. The first
phase of the experiment creates
antihydrogen: antiprotons from the
Antiproton Decelerator are coupled with
positrons, making a pulse of horizontally-
travelling antihydrogen atoms. These
atoms are sent through a series of
diffraction gratings, ultimately hitting a
surface and thus annihilating. The points
where the antihydrogen annihilates are
measured with a precise detector. Areas
behind the gratings are shadowed, while
those behind the slits are not. The
annihilation points reproduce a periodic
pattern of light and shadowed areas.
Using this pattern, it can be measured
how many atoms of different velocities
drop during horizontal flight. Therefore,
the Earth's gravitational force on
antihydrogen can be determined.[21] It
was originally proposed in 2007.[22]
Construction of the main apparatus was
completed in 2012.

AEgIS collaboration

The AEgIS collaboration comprises the

following institutions:

University of Bergen, Norway

University of Bern, Switzerland
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare,
Italy
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
University College London, United
Kingdom
 Max Planck Institute for Nuclear
Physics, Germany
University of Oslo, Norway
Czech Technical University in Prague,
Czech Republic
Stefan Meyer Institute, Austria
Institute of Nuclear Research of The
Russian Academy of Science, Russia
Université de Lyon, France
Université de Paris Sud, France

GBAR
GBAR (Gravitational Behaviour of Anti
hydrogen at Rest), is a multinational
collaboration at the Antiproton
Decelerator (AD) of CERN.
The GBAR project, aims to measure the
free fall acceleration of ultracold neutral
anti hydrogen atoms in the terrestrial
gravitational field. The experiment
consists preparing anti hydrogen ions
(one antiproton and two positrons) and
sympathetically cooling them with Be +
ions to less than 10 μK. The ultracold
ions will then be photoionized just above
threshold, and the free fall time over a
known distance measured.[23]

GBAR collaboration

The GBAR collaboration comprises the

following institutions:

Commissariat à l'énergie atomique,

 France
ETH Zurich, Swiss
University of Mainz, Germany
Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel, France
CSNSM, France
RIKEN, Japan
University of Tokyo, Japan
Université de Strasbourg, France
Uppsala University, Sweden
Stockholm University, Sweden
Swansea University, UK
NCBJ, Poland

BASE
official BASE logo

BASE (Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry

Experiment), is a multinational
collaboration at the Antiproton
Decelerator (AD) of CERN.

The goal of the Japanese/German BASE

collaboration [24] are high-precision
investigations of the fundamental
properties of the antiproton, namely the
charge-to-mass ratio and the magnetic
moment. To this end single antiprotons
are stored in an advanced Penning trap
system, which has a double-trap system
at its core. It consists of a precision trap
and an analysis trap. The precision trap
is for high precision frequency
measurements, the analysis trap has a
strong magnetic field inhomogeneity
superimposed, which is used for single
particle spin flip spectroscopy. By
measuring the spin flip rate as a function
of the frequency of an externally applied
magnetic-drive, a resonance curve is
obtained. Together with a measurement
of the cyclotron frequency, the magnetic
moment is extracted.

The BASE collaboration developed

techniques to observe the first spin flips
of a single trapped proton[25] and applied
the double-trap technique to measure the
magnetic moment of the proton with a
fractional precision of three parts in a
billion,[26] being the most precise
measurement of this fundamental
property of the proton. The application of
the technique to measure the magnetic
moment of the antiproton with similar
precision will improve the precision of
this value by at least a factor of 1000,
and will provide one of the most stringent
tests of CPT invariance to date.

BASE collaboration

The BASE collaboration comprises the

following institutions:
 RIKEN, Japan
University of Tokyo, Japan
Max Planck Institute for Nuclear
Physics, Germany
University of Mainz, Germany
GSI, Germany
University of Hannover, Germany

See also
Antimatter
Antihydrogen
Gravitational interaction of antimatter

References
1. "The Antiproton Decelerator - CERN" .
Retrieved 21 December 2016.
2. https://espace.cern.ch/elena-
project/sitepages/home.aspx
3. Oelert, W. (2015). "The ELENA Project
at CERN". Acta Physica Polonica B. 46 (1):
181. arXiv:1501.05728  .
Bibcode:2015AcPPB..46..181O .
doi:10.5506/APhysPolB.46.181 .
4. Madsen, N. "Antiproton physics in the
ELENA era" . Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 376
(2116).
Bibcode:2018RSPTA.37670278M .
doi:10.1098/rsta.2017.0278 .
5. "A new ring to slow down antimatter -
CERN" . Retrieved 21 December 2016.
6. "Thousands of cold anti-atoms
produced at CERN" (Press release).
CERN. 18 September 2002.
7. Amoretti, M.; et al. (ATHENA
Collaboration) (2002). "Production and
detection of cold antihydrogen atoms".
Nature. 419 (6906): 456–459.
Bibcode:2002Natur.419..456A .
doi:10.1038/nature01096 .
PMID 12368849 .
8. Amoretti, M.; et al. (ATHENA
Collaboration) (February 2004). "The
ATHENA antihydrogen apparatus".
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in
Physics Research Section A. 518 (3):
679–711.
Bibcode:2004NIMPA.518..679A .
doi:10.1016/j.nima.2003.09.052 .
9. "The ATHENA Collaboration" . CERN.
Archived from the original on 1 March
2012. Retrieved 1 February 2010.
10. "UC San Diego: Department of Physics
- Surko Plasma Research Group" .
Retrieved 21 December 2016.
11. Fitzakerley, D. W.; et al. (ATRAP
Collaboration) (2016). "Electron-cooled
accumulation of 4 × 109 positrons for
production and storage of antihydrogen
atoms". Journal of Physics B. 49 (6):
064001. Bibcode:2016JPhB...49f4001F .
doi:10.1088/0953-4075/49/6/064001 .
12.
http://asacusa.web.cern.ch/ASACUSA/
13. "ASACUSA - General" . Retrieved
21 December 2016.
14.
http://asacusa.web.cern.ch/ASACUSA/ho
me/spsc/proposal.pdf
15. "ACE - CERN" . Retrieved 21 December
2016.
16. Madsen, N. (2010). "Cold
antihydrogen: a new frontier in
fundamental physics" (PDF).
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society A. 368 (1924): 3671–82.
Bibcode:2010RSPTA.368.3671M .
doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0026 .
PMID 20603376 .
17. "The Coolest Antiprotons" . American
Physical Society. 2010. Archived from
the original on 4 July 2010. Retrieved
2010-07-02.
18. "Universe shouldn't exist, CERN
physicists conclude" . Cosmos Magazine.
2017-10-23.
19. "ALPHA probes antimatter gravity" .
CERN/Alpha experiment. 2013-04-30.
20. The ALPHA Collaboration & A. E.
Charman (2013). "Description and first
application of a new technique to
measure the gravitational mass of
antihydrogen" . Nature Communications.
4. Bibcode:2013NatCo...4E1785A .
doi:10.1038/ncomms2787 . Article
number: 1785.
21. Aegis Collaboration (2014). "AEgIS
Experiment" . CERN. Retrieved
2017-06-20.
22.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1037532/fil
es/spsc-2007-017.pdf
23. Pérez, P.; et al. (2015). "The GBAR
antimatter gravity experiment". Hyperfine
Interactions. 233 (1–3): 21–27.
Bibcode:2015HyInt.233...21P .
doi:10.1007/s10751-015-1154-8 .
24. "official BASE website" .
25. Ulmer, S.; et al. (20 June 2011).
"Observation of Spin Flips with a Single
Trapped Proton". Physical Review Letters.
106 (25): 253001. arXiv:1104.1206  .
Bibcode:2011PhRvL.106y3001U .
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.253001 .
26. Mooser, A.; et al. (2014). "Direct high-
precision measurement of the magnetic
moment of the proton". Nature. 509
(7502): 596–599. arXiv:1406.4888  .
Bibcode:2014Natur.509..596M .
doi:10.1038/nature13388 .

Further reading
G. Gache (12 July 2008). "How would
antimatter interact with gravity?" .
Softpedia.
G. Drobychev; et al. (AEGIS
collaboration) (8 June 2007).
"Proposal for the AEGIS experiment at
the CERN Antiproton Decelerator
(Antimatter Experiment: Gravity,
 Interferometry, Spectroscopy)" (PDF).
CERN.
G. Testera; et al. (2008). "Formation of
a cold antihydrogen beam in AEGIS for
gravity measurements". AIP
Conference Proceedings. 1037: 5–15.
arXiv:0805.4727  .
Bibcode:2008AIPC.1037....5T .
doi:10.1063/1.2977857 .

External links
AD website
ATHENA website
ATRAP website
ASACUSA website
ALPHA website
 AEgIS website
"What is the AD?" . CERN. Archived
from the original on 15 February 2006.
"ATHENA figures and pictures" . CERN.
Archived from the original on 22 June
2007.

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