Speaker
Description
We report on the design and characterization of an antiproton deceleration beamline, based on a pulsed drift tube, for the PUMA experiment at the Antimatter Factory at CERN. The design has been tailored to high-voltage (100 kV) and ultra-high vacuum (below $10^{-10}$ mbar) conditions. A first operation achieved decelerating antiprotons from an initial energy of 100 keV down to $(3898 \pm 3)$ eV, marking the initial stage in trapping antiprotons for the PUMA experiment. Employing a high-voltage ramping scheme, the pressure remains below $2 \times 10^{-10}$ mbar upstream of the pulsed drift tube for 75% of the cycle time. The beamline reached a transmission of $(55 \pm 3)$\% for antiprotons decelerated to 4keV. The beam is focused on a position sensitive detector to a spot with horizontal and vertical standard deviations of $\sigma_\mathrm{horiz}=(3.0 \pm 0.1)$ mm and $\sigma_\mathrm{vert}=(3.8\pm 0.2)$ mm, respectively. This spot size is within the acceptance of the PUMA Penning trap.
