New Plasma Tools for Physics with Low-energy Antimatter

该奖项是根据NSF- doe等离子科学与工程合作伙伴联合招标（NSF 09-596）提交并审查的提案作出的。该奖项提供资金支持本科生参与整体研究工作，该研究工作由美国能源部奖励号单独资助。冷反物质在一系列应用中很重要。这个项目将为反物质研究开发新的物理工具。回旋加速器冷却正电子已被证明是一种有效和有用的工具。我们将探讨这种技术的局限性和提高冷却速度的方法。旋转壁技术，利用旋转电场在磁场中径向向内压缩等离子体，已被证明是实现高等离子体密度和长约束时间的一种非常有用的方法。将进行研究，以找到压缩等离子体和形成冷高密度状态的改进方法。此外，将开发一种方法，从捕获的等离子体中形成专门定制的（例如，冷，亮）正电子束，包括从Penning-Malmberg陷阱的磁场中提取的光束。该奖项使本科生能够参与其中，通过将学生引入科学研究作为可能的职业道路，对他们进行早期培训，从而增加了更广泛的教育影响。

This award is made in response to a proposal submitted to and reviewed under the NSF-DoE Partnership in Plasma Science and Engineering joint solicitation, NSF 09-596. The award provides funds to support undergraduate participation in the overall research effort, which is being funded separately by the DoE Award No. DE-FG02-10ER55080.1Cold antimatter is important in a range of applications. This project will develop new physics tools for antimatter research. Cyclotron cooling of positrons has proven to be an effective and useful tool. The limits of this technique and methods to improve cooling rates will be explored. The rotating wall technique, whereby rotating electric fields are used to compress plasmas radially inward across the magnetic field, has proven to be an exceedingly useful way to achieve high plasma densities and long confinement times. Research will be conducted to find improved ways to compress plasmas and to form cold high-density states. Additionally, a method will be developed to form specially tailored (e.g., cold, bright) positron beams from trapped plasmas, including beams extracted from the magnetic field of the Penning-Malmberg trap. The undergraduate participation, enabled by this award, adds a broader educational impact through the early-year training of students by introducing them to scientific research as a possible career path.