Prospects toward larger (and colder) samples of antihydrogen atoms in ground-state through stimulated deexcitation

by Tim Hilmar Wolz (CERN)

Wednesday 26 Jan 2022, 09:00 → 10:00 Europe/Vienna

This Seminar will be held as an online-only event, due to the omicron wave of the corona virus pandemic. 
If you wish to join online please send an email to martin.simon at oeaw.ac.at by Tue. 25th of Jan. 2022 to request the zoom-link.

Abstract:

Charge-exchange and three-body-reactions allow to synthesize antihydrogen atoms at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator facility for CPT tests and measurements of the acceleration of neutral antimatter systems in Earth's gravitational field. In both cases, the anti-atoms are produced in long-lived, highly excited Rydberg states while spectroscopy and gravity experiments require them to be in their ground-state. We introduce techniques to enhance the spontaneous decay [1,2,3] and thus reduce the lifetimes of the states of interest by several orders of magnitude to some tens of microseconds. Tests of suitable light sources [4] and the status of a hydrogen deexcitation proof-of-principle experiment are discussed. Finally, further applications of deexcitation for cooling and enhanced trapping in neutral atom traps will be addressed.

[1] Phys. Rev. A 99, 013418
[2] Phys. Rev. A 101, 019904
[3] Phys. Rev. A 101, 043412
[4] Eur. Phys. J. D. 75, 27

Chair:
Dr. Martin Simon