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为我们理解周围的世界奠定基础。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、磁学和软件开发。随着理论的发展，理论学生可以在实验的设计、操作和分析中做出重要贡献。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。这项研究包括代表不足的群体成员的大量参与。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陷阱的设计。物理问题将通过伯克利和欧洲核子研究中心的实验、经典轨迹蒙特卡罗、分子动力学、弗拉索夫代码和3D粒子-细胞代码以及解析理论来研究。将解决的一些问题包括：实现更好的(更低的)轻子和反质子温度；研究轻子如何与背景辐射场相互作用；研究轻子如何与共振腔相互作用；改进等离子体诊断；改进正电子和反质子的混合，以便产生的更多反氢可以被保存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物理部和国际科学与工程办公室共同发起的。

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.