AD/Elena Facility

by Davide Gamba (CERN)

Tuesday 6 Oct 2026, 14:00 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

30/7-018 - Kjell Johnsen Auditorium (CERN)

Abstract:

CERN’s Antimatter Factory is a unique accelerator complex dedicated to the production and deceleration of antiprotons for experiments at very low energies. Antiprotons produced by 26 GeV/c protons impinging on a target are collected at 3.5 GeV/c and progressively decelerated and cooled in the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and ELENA rings, ultimately providing experiments with 100 keV antiproton bunches.

This lecture will describe how the AD and ELENA machines produce these beams, with particular emphasis on the accelerator-physics challenges associated with decelerating, cooling and manipulating such small numbers of particles over more than four orders of magnitude in energy. A brief evolution of the facility, from the antiproton machines built for CERN’s proton–antiproton collider programme to today’s Antimatter Factory, will provide the historical context.

The present performance and operational limitations of the facility will be discussed, together with recent developments such as the TELMAX test area. Finally, the lecture will look towards the longer-term future of the Antimatter Factory, considering the consolidation required to preserve its capabilities as well as possible upgrades motivated by an evolving experimental programme and new uses of low-energy antiproton beams.

Bio:

Davide Gamba is a researcher in the Accelerator Beam Physics group at CERN. He received his PhD from the University of Oxford for work on the optimisation of the CLIC Drive Beam recombination at CERN’s CLIC Test Facility, CTF3, and later contributed to the conversion of part of that infrastructure into the CLEAR electron-beam user facility. His work has also included studies for the HL-LHC, in particular on interaction-point orbit control and ground-motion effects. In recent years, his main focus has been CERN’s low-energy antiproton complex, where he has contributed to the commissioning, restart and performance improvement of ELENA and of the AD–ELENA chain. His expertise includes beam dynamics, electron cooling, operational optimisation and the specification of future cooling systems, including the new electron cooler for the Antiproton Decelerator. He coordinates and supports machine-development activities aimed at improving beam quality, reliability and long-term performance for CERN’s antimatter physics programme.