New Plasma Tools for Physics with Low-energy Antimatter

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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.