Collaborative Research: Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Plasma Physics of Antihydrogen Generation and Trapping

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。实验学生学习束流和等离子体物理，实验规划和设计，仪器仪表，电子学，低温学，磁学和软件开发。沿着理论的发展，理论学生可以对实验的设计、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。该研究包括代表性不足的团体成员的重要参与。研究主要集中在围绕改进反氢捕获的直接等离子体和原子物理问题，以及为引力研究优化的第三代阱的设计。物理问题将在伯克利和欧洲核子研究中心的实验，与经典的轨迹蒙特卡罗，分子动力学，弗拉索夫代码和三维粒子在细胞代码，并与分析理论进行研究。其中一些问题将得到解决，包括：实现改善（较低）轻子和反质子的温度;研究轻子如何与背景辐射场相互作用;研究轻子如何与谐振腔相互作用;改进等离子体诊断;以及改进正电子和反质子的混合，以便更多的反氢可以被容纳在非常浅的中性陷阱中。虽然寻求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。 这项研究是由美国国家科学基金会的物理部和国际科学与工程办公室共同赞助的。

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. Experimental students learn beam and plasma physics, experimental planning and design, instrumentation, electronics, cryogenics, magnetics and software development. Along with theory development, theory students 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 research includes significant participation by members of underrepresented groups.The research is primarily focused on the immediate plasma and atomic physics issues surrounding improving the trapping of antihydrogen, and on the design of a third generation trap optimized for gravitational research. The physics issues will be studied with experiments at Berkeley and at CERN, with classical trajectory Monte Carlo, molecular dynamics, Vlasov codes and 3D Particle-In-Cell codes, and with analytic theory. Some of the questions that will be addressed include: achieving improved (lower) lepton and antiproton temperatures; studying how leptons interact with the background radiation field; studying how leptons interact with resonant cavities; improved plasma diagnostics; and improved mixing of positrons and antiprotons, so that more of the resultant antihydrogen can be held in a very shallow neutral trap. 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. This research is co-sponsored by the NSF's Physics Division and the Office of International Science and Engineering.