Fundamental Symmetry Tests with Trapped Antihydrogen: ALPHA Project at CERN/AD

Alpha是CERN的一个实验。ALPHA合作涉及来自8个国家15个机构的科学家。这些科学家中有三分之一以上来自加拿大的研究实验室和大学。加拿大团队自2005年成立以来一直获得NSERC的重大项目资助，并为众多ALPHA成就做出了重大贡献。阿尔法项目的目标是测量和比较“反氢”的某些性质-中性反物质的最简单原子形式-与普通氢的性质。在这样做的过程中，合作将直接测试和挑战关于物质和反物质之间相似性和差异（“对称性”）的基本理论，这个问题可以说是物理学中最大的未解决问题之一。近年来，ALPHA在追求其主要目标方面取得了许多重大和引人注目的里程碑，包括：低温冷却技术的新应用（2010年），中性反物质的稳定（2010年）和长期（2011年）捕获，以及捕获反氢的原理微波研究（2012年）。阿尔法目前正在进行重大升级，加拿大集团在NSERC的支持下作出了重大贡献。新设备（ALPHA-2）将允许光学访问捕获的反氢精确激光光谱，以及改进的微波光谱。阿尔法加拿大对阿尔法-2的贡献包括：设计和制造新的反原子阱低温恒温器，升级探测器读出系统和数据采集，新的（和改进的）阱电子设备，以及激光和微波系统。在本提案中，我们请求提供资金来支持一项令人兴奋且引人注目的三年研究计划。它将导致有史以来第一次激光冷却原子反氢，改进测量的反氢超精细分裂的精度是基本的物理利益，并首次演示反氢的1 s-2s光谱。

ALPHA is an experiment based at CERN. The ALPHA collaboration involves scientists from 15 institutions in 8 countries. Over one-third of these scientists come from Canadian research laboratories and universities. The Canadian team has held major project funding from NSERC since its inception in 2005, and has made significant contributions to numerous ALPHA achievements. The goal of the ALPHA project is to measure and compare certain properties of 'antihydrogen' - the simplest atomic form of neutral antimatter - with those of ordinary hydrogen. In doing so, the collaboration will directly test and challenge fundamental theories about similarities and differences ('symmetries') between matter and antimatter, an issue that is arguably one of the greatest unsolved problems in physics. In recent years, ALPHA has achieved many significant and high profile milestones in its pursuit of its primary goal, including: novel application of cryogenic cooling techniques (2010), stable (2010) and long term (2011) trapping of neutral antimatter, and proof of principle microwave studies of trapped antihydrogen (2012). ALPHA is currently undergoing a major upgrade, to which the Canadian group has made significant contributions with support from NSERC. The new apparatus (ALPHA-2) will allow optical access to trapped antihydrogen for precision laser spectroscopy, as well as improved microwave spectroscopy. ALPHA-Canada's contributions to ALPHA-2 include: design and fabrication of the new anti-atom trap cryostat, upgrades to the detector readout system and data acquisition, new (and improved) trap electronics, as well as laser and microwave systems. In this proposal, we request funding to support an exciting and highly-visible three year program of research. It will result in the first-ever laser cooling of atomic antihydrogen, an improved measurement of the antihydrogen hyperfine splitting at a precision that is of fundamental physics interest, and a first demonstration of 1s-2s spectroscopy in antihydrogen.