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Physical Review A

Possible mechanism for enhancing the trapping and cooling of antihydrogen

Claudio Lenz Cesar, F. Robicheaux, Nicim Zagury

Published Oct 23, 2009• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a usage of microwave radiation in a magnetic trap for improving the cooling and trapping of cold antihydrogen atoms which are initially produced in high magnetic moment states. Inducing transitions toward lower magnetic moments near the turning points of the atom in the trap, followed by spontaneous emission, should enhance the number of trappable atoms. We present results of simulations based on a typical experimental condition of the antihydrogen experiments at CERN. This technique should also be applicable to other trapped high magnetic moment Rydberg atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.80.041404

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We propose a usage of microwave radiation in a magnetic trap for improving the cooling and trapping of cold antihydrogen atoms which are initially produced in high magnetic moment states. Inducing transitions toward lower magnetic moments near the turning points of the atom in the trap, followed by spontaneous emission, should enhance the number of trappable atoms. We present results of simulations based on a typical experimental condition of the antihydrogen experiments at CERN. This technique should also be applicable to other trapped high magnetic moment Rydberg atoms.
Abstract We present results of simulations highlighting the performance of a cooling mechanism in a magnetic trap tailored for excited Rydberg atoms (or molecules) with high magnetic moment. Unlike previous work, the cooling is achieved through fast stimulated decay of inter-manifold transitions which optimizes the scheme. This mechanism is relevant to experiments with trapped antihydrogen atoms for which the trapping fraction is currently low. We find several-fold enhancements of the number of atoms trapped in the configurations probed.
An efficient cooling mechanism of magnetically trapped, highly excited antihydrogen (H) atoms is presented. This cooling, in addition to the expected evaporative cooling, results in trapping of a large number of H atoms in the ground state. It is found that the final fraction of trapped atoms is insensitive to the initial distribution of H magnetic quantum numbers. Expressions are derived for the cooling efficiency, demonstrating that magnetic quadrupole (cusp) traps provide stronger cooling than higher order magnetic multipoles. The final temperature of H confined in a cusp trap is shown to depend as approximately 2.2T(n0)n(0)(-2/3) on the initial Rydberg level n0 and temperature T(n0).
Precise spectroscopic measurements of anti-hydrogen at the ALPHA experiment are hindered by small numbers of cold anti-atoms. This thesis describes a cooling technique for positron plasmas which can be used to increase the number of trappable anti-hydrogen atoms. The technique builds on previous work which allows control of spontaneous emission via the Purcell Effect. Our implementation incorporates a novel microwave resonator into an existing Penning trap to enhance spontaneous emission. Preliminary data suggests that temperatures and cooling rates for these plasmas can be improved by at least a factor of 10. Eventually this work could result in an order of magnitude increase in anti-hydrogen production at ALPHA.
An efficient cooling mechanism of magnetically trapped, highly excited antihydrogen (H) atoms is presented. This cooling, in addition to the expected evaporative cooling, results in trapping of a large number of H atoms in the ground state. It is found that the final fraction of trapped atoms is insensitive to the initial distribution of H magnetic quantum numbers. Expressions are derived for the cooling efficiency, demonstrating that magnetic quadrupole (cusp) traps provide stronger cooling than higher order magnetic multipoles. The final temperature of H confined in a cusp trap is shown to depend as {approx}2.2T{sub n{sub 0}}n{sub 0}{sup -2/3} on the initial Rydberg level n{sub 0} and temperature T{sub n{sub 0}}.
The formation of antihydrogen atoms from antiprotons injected into a positron plasma is simulated, focussing on the fraction that fulfil the conditions necessary for confinement of anti-atoms in a magnetic minimum trap. Trapping fractions of around 10 −4 are found under conditions similar to those used in recent experiments, and in reasonable accord with their results. We have studied the behaviour of the trapped fraction at various positron plasma densities and temperatures and found that collisional effects play a beneficial role via a redistribution of the antihydrogen magnetic moment, allowing enhancements of the yield of low-field seeking states that are amenable to trapping.
Antihydrogen atoms are routinely formed at the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN in a wide range of Rydberg states. To perform precision measurements, experiments rely on ground-state antimatter atoms which are currently obtained only after spontaneous decay. In order to enhance the number of atoms in ground state, we propose and assess the efficiency of different methods to stimulate their decay. First, we investigate the use of THz radiation to simultaneously couple all nnn-manifolds down to a low-lying one with sufficiently fast spontaneous emission toward ground state. We further study a deexcitation scheme relying on state mixing via microwave and/or THz light and a coupled (visible) deexcitation laser. We obtain close to unity ground-state fractions within a few tens of $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$ for a population initiated in the n=30n=30n=30 manifold. Finally, we study how the production of antihydrogen atoms via stimulated radiative recombination can favorably change the initial distribution of states and improve the overall number of ground-state atoms when combined with stimulated deexcitation.