Speaker
Description
Antiprotonic atoms are exotic objects where one or more electrons have been replaced by antiprotons [1]. Numerous phenomena can be observed using such atoms, making them very interesting objects for experimental and theoretical studies. Creating such objects requires an efficient source of antiprotons, such as the ELENA ring at CERN [2]. The delivered antiprotons can be captured and stored in a Penning trap, part of CERN’s AEgIS apparatus [3]. Some atoms with the same electric charge sign (negative in this case) should be stored in the same trapping potential to prepare antiprotonic atoms. After further photo-detachment of electrons from such an ion, the atom and the antiproton may collide to form an antiprotonic atom.
A long-lasting, efficient source of atomic anions is necessary to achieve this goal. The presented system is based on a well-known phenomenon of electron dissociative attachment in electron-molecule collisions [4]. The created anions are stored and cooled inside a multicenter linear Paul trap and then, on request, injected into the Penning trap containing the antiprotons. Such a device was designed, constructed, calibrated and tested at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In the presentation, the source design and preliminary testing results will be discussed.
- G. Backenstoss “Antiprotonic Atoms” Contemporary Physics 30 (1989) 433–448
- https://home.cern/science/accelerators/antiproton-decelerator
- https://aegis.web.cern.ch/index.php
- I. Fabrikant et al. “Recent Progress in Dissociative Electron Attachment: From Diatomics to Biomolecules” Advances In Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (2017) 545-657
