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。光谱的不同只能由CPT破坏造成。第二个更遥远的目标是测量重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。这项提议的重点是围绕着捕获反氢的直接等离子体和原子物理问题。这些问题将通过欧洲核子研究中心的实验、经典轨迹蒙特卡罗、分子动力学和3DPIC程序以及解析理论来研究。将讨论的一些问题包括：如何在足够低的温度下将正电子、反质子限制在八极杆中；轻子如何与背景辐射场相互作用；反质子-反质子碰撞如何松弛非热分布；如何将正电子和反质子混合，从而产生的反氢可以被困在很浅的中性陷阱中；当禁闭势改变时，零频反弹共振如何导致反质子损失；以及如何预测在各种混合方案下产生的反氢的能量和状态。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中提出了新的和深刻的问题。这项研究的长期目标解决了我们理解周围世界的基础。潜在地，它对粒子相互作用的性质、物质-反物质对称性问题以及宇宙学都有深刻的影响。同时，这项研究具有独特的可见性，因为反物质的研究对公众来说是容易理解和吸引人的。反氢实验足够简单，研究生可以完整地理解它们。因此，它们为学生提供了广泛的教育。实验者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、磁学和软件开发。随着理论的发展，理论家可以对实验的设计、操作和分析做出重要贡献。材料的相对可访问性使本科生很容易融入实验和理论课程。拟议的研究包括代表人数不足的群体成员在自然科学领域的大量参与。

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.