Development of Plasma Theory in Support of the Quest to Form and Trap Cold Neutral Antimatter

一项国际努力已经开始，目标是首次形成和捕获冷反氢。现有的计划要求将反氢捕获在产生磁阱的非均匀磁场中。为了支持形成和捕获冷中性反物质的探索，等离子体理论已经开始发展，预测低温等离子体的行为。 然而，现有理论的各个部分仅适用于均匀磁场，并且需要在理论中进行各种改进和扩展。该奖项下的工作将包括两个必要的理论进展。首先，有限差分计算方法，这是以前开发的嵌套潘宁陷阱具有均匀磁场的等离子体平衡预测，将修改适用于非均匀磁场。其次，将开发一种蒙特卡罗计算方法，用于预测具有非均匀磁场的嵌套潘宁阱中低温等离子体的轴向约束特性。

An international effort has commenced with the goal of forming and trapping cold antihydrogen for the first time. Existing plans call for the antihydrogen to be trapped within a nonuniform magnetic field that produces a magnetic well. To support the quest to form and trap cold neutral antimatter, plasma theory has begun to be developed that predicts the behavior of cryogenic plasmas. However, various parts of the existing theory apply only for a uniform magnetic field, and various improvements and extensions in the theory are needed. The work that will be performed under this award will include two needed theoretical advances. First, a finite-differences computational approach, which was previously developed for predicting plasma equilibria in nested Penning traps having a uniform magnetic field, will be modified to apply for nonuniform magnetic fields. Second, a Monte Carlo computational approach will be developed for predicting the axial confinement characteristics of a cryogenic plasma within nested Penning traps having nonuniform magnetic fields.