Collaborative Research: Experimental and theoretical study of the plasma physics of antihydrogen generation and trapping

这项合作研究的最终目标是测量氢和反氢的相对光谱。光谱中的差异只能由CPT违反引起。第二个更遥远的目标是测量引力对氢和反氢的相对影响。任何一种测量的积极结果都将彻底改变我们对基本粒子和场的理解。这个建议的重点是围绕反氢捕获的直接等离子体和原子物理问题。这些问题将在欧洲核子研究中心的实验研究，与经典的轨道蒙特卡罗，分子动力学和三维PIC代码，并与分析理论。将要解决的一些问题包括：如何在足够冷的温度下将正电子、反质子限制在八极子中;轻子如何与背景辐射场相互作用;反质子-反质子碰撞如何弛豫非热分布;如何混合正电子和反质子，以便所产生的反氢可以被保持在非常浅的中性阱中;当限制势改变时，零反弹共振如何引起反质子损失，以及如何预测在各种混合方案下所得反氢的能量和状态。虽然寻找这些问题答案的动机来自反氢研究，但其中许多问题在等离子体和原子物理学中提出了新的和深刻的问题。这项研究的长期目标是解决我们对周围世界的理解的基础。 潜在地，它对粒子相互作用的本质、物质-反物质对称性问题和宇宙学有着深刻的影响。与此同时，这项研究是独一无二的，因为反物质的研究对公众来说是容易接近和迷人的。反氢实验非常简单，研究生完全可以理解。因此，他们为学生提供广泛的教育。实验学家学习束流和等离子体物理，实验规划和设计，仪器仪表，特高压实践，电子学，低温学，磁学和软件开发。沿着理论的发展，理论工作者可以对实验的设计、操作和分析做出重要贡献。材料的相对可及性使得本科生很容易融入实验和理论课程。拟议的研究包括物理科学中代表性不足的群体成员的重要参与。

The ultimate goal of this collaborative research is to measure the relative spectra of hydrogen and antihydrogen. Differences in the spectra could only result from CPT violation. A second, more remote goal is to measure the relative effects of gravity on hydrogen and antihydrogen. Positive results from either measurement would completely change our understanding of fundamental particles and fields. This proposal is focused on the immediate plasma and atomic physics issues surrounding the trapping of antihydrogen. These issues will be studied with experiments at CERN, with classical trajectory Monte Carlo, molecular dynamics, and 3D PIC codes, and with analytic theory. Some of the questions that will be addressed include: how to confine positrons, antiprotons in an octupole at sufficiently cold temperatures; how do leptons interact with the background radiation field; how do antiproton-antiproton collisions relax nonthermal distributions; how to mix positrons and antiprotons so that the resultant antihydrogen can be held in a very shallow neutral trap; how do zerofrequency bounce resonances cause antiproton loss when the confining potentials are changed, and; how to predict the energy and state of the resultant antihydrogen under various mixing schemes. While the motivation for seeking answers to these questions comes from antihydrogen research, many of these questions raise novel and deep issues in plasma and atomic physics.The long-term goals of this research address the very basis of our understanding of the world around us. Potentially, it has deep implications on the nature of particle interactions, on the question of matter-antimatter symmetry, and on cosmology. At the same time, this research is uniquely visible because the study of antimatter is accessible and fascinating to the public. Antihydrogen experiments are sufficiently simple that they can be comprehended in their entirety by graduate students. Consequently, they offer students a broad education. Experimentalists learn beam and plasma physics, experimental planning and design, instrumentation, UHV practice, electronics, cryogenics, magnetics and software development. Along with theory development, theorists can make critical contributions to the design, operation, and analysis of the experiments. The relative accessibility of the material makes it easy to integrate undergraduate students into both the experimental and theoretical program. The proposed research includes significant participation by members of underrepresented groups in the physical sciences.