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New Journal of Physics

On the formation of antihydrogen beams using travelling optical lattices

N. Madsen, M. Charlton

Published Jun 15, 2021• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The production of beams of antihydrogen atoms using the dipole force provided by a travelling optical lattice to accelerate a sample of the anti-atoms held in a magnetic gradient atom trap is investigated. By considering current and near-future antihydrogen trapping capabilities we find that useful fluxes of the anti-atoms can be achieved with directional properties that can be manipulated using laser parameters such as pulse duration and frequency chirp rate. Applications of the beams are briefly discussed.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/ac0b7b

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Abstract The production of beams of antihydrogen atoms using the dipole force provided by a travelling optical lattice to accelerate a sample of the anti-atoms held in a magnetic gradient atom trap is investigated. By considering current and near-future antihydrogen trapping capabilities we find that useful fluxes of the anti-atoms can be achieved with directional properties that can be manipulated using laser parameters such as pulse duration and frequency chirp rate. Applications of the beams are briefly discussed.
The feasibility of producing the molecular antihydrogen anion ${{\overline{\mathrm{H}}}_{2}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ in the laboratory is investigated. Utilizing reaction rates calculated here involving the interaction of laser excited-state antihydrogen atoms held in magnetic minimum traps, key processes are identified that could lead to anion production, as well as competing effects leading to anti-atom loss. These are discussed in the context of present-day and near-future experimental capabilities.
Abstract The photon—the quantum excitation of the electromagnetic field—is massless but carries momentum. A photon can therefore exert a force on an object upon collision1. Slowing the translational motion of atoms and ions by application of such a force2,3, known as laser cooling, was first demonstrated 40 years ago4,5. It revolutionized atomic physics over the following decades6–8, and it is now a workhorse in many fields, including studies on quantum degenerate gases, quantum information, atomic clocks and tests of fundamental physics. However, this technique has not yet been applied to antimatter. Here we demonstrate laser cooling of antihydrogen9, the antimatter atom consisting of an antiproton and a positron. By exciting the 1S–2P transition in antihydrogen with pulsed, narrow-linewidth, Lyman-α laser radiation10,11, we Doppler-cool a sample of magnetically trapped antihydrogen. Although we apply laser cooling in only one dimension, the trap couples the longitudinal and transverse motions of the anti-atoms, leading to cooling in all three dimensions. We observe a reduction in the median transverse energy by more than an order of magnitude—with a substantial fraction of the anti-atoms attaining submicroelectronvolt transverse kinetic energies. We also report the observation of the laser-driven 1S–2S transition in samples of laser-cooled antihydrogen atoms. The observed spectral line is approximately four times narrower than that obtained without laser cooling. The demonstration of laser cooling and its immediate application has far-reaching implications for antimatter studies. A more localized, denser and colder sample of antihydrogen will drastically improve spectroscopic11–13 and gravitational14 studies of antihydrogen in ongoing experiments. Furthermore, the demonstrated ability to manipulate the motion of antimatter atoms by laser light will potentially provide ground-breaking opportunities for future experiments, such as anti-atomic fountains, anti-atom interferometry and the creation of antimatter molecules.
The creation of directed fluxes of positronium atoms using the optical dipole force from short, pulsed travelling optical lattices has been studied. By exploiting the favourable polarizability-to-mass ratio of positronium it has been found that accelerations in excess of 10 14 g are possible. Simulations have been performed for several cases in which lattice beams capture a substantial fraction of a cloud of ground state ortho-positronium atoms, assumed to be characterised by an initial temperature of 300 K. We show that, using conventional laser sources, bunches of positronium atoms can be accelerated, well within the ortho-positronium vacuum lifetime of 142 ns, to a wide variety of kinetic energies in the eV to 100s of eV range and with well-defined energy spreads. The final kinetic energy of the positronium can be tuned using the laser intensity, the pulse duration or the rate of change of the frequency between the two beams which form the lattice.
Over the last decades it has become routine to form beams of positrons and antiprotons and to use them to produce trapped samples of both species for a variety of purposes. Positrons can be captured efficiently, for instance using a buffer-gas system, and in such quantities to form dense, single component plasmas useful for antihydrogen formation. The latter is possible using developments of techniques for dynamically capturing and then cooling antiprotons ejected from the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN. The antiprotons can then be manipulated by cloud compression and evaporative cooling to form tailored plasmas. We will review recent advances that have allowed antihydrogen atoms to be confined for the first time in a shallow magnetic minimum neutral atom trap superimposed upon the region in which the antiparticles are held and mixed. A new mixing technique has been developed to help achieve this using autoresonant excitation of the centreofmass longitudinal motion of an antiproton cloud. This allows efficient antihydrogen formation without imparting excess energy to the antiprotons and helps enhance the probability of trapping the anti-atom. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.
Abstract Antihydrogen atoms with K or sub-K temperature are a powerful tool to precisely probe the validity of fundamental physics laws and the design of highly sensitive experiments needs antihydrogen with controllable and well defined conditions. We present here experimental results on the production of antihydrogen in a pulsed mode in which the time when 90% of the atoms are produced is known with an uncertainty of ~250 ns. The pulsed source is generated by the charge-exchange reaction between Rydberg positronium atoms—produced via the injection of a pulsed positron beam into a nanochanneled Si target, and excited by laser pulses—and antiprotons, trapped, cooled and manipulated in electromagnetic traps. The pulsed production enables the control of the antihydrogen temperature, the tunability of the Rydberg states, their de-excitation by pulsed lasers and the manipulation through electric field gradients. The production of pulsed antihydrogen is a major landmark in the AE gˉ\bar{g}gˉ​ ḡ IS experiment to perform direct measurements of the validity of the Weak Equivalence Principle for antimatter.
Summary form only given. Acceleration of molecules within a time varying electric field produced by an optical traveling wave has been proposed as a means to accelerate neutral particles to high velocity. This technique is attractive because extremely large Stark forces can be produced by the high electric field gradients that can be created within an optical traveling wave. The electrodeless electric field gradient produced by focused laser beams can be orders of magnitude greater than electrostatic gradients, allowing acceleration of polar as well as polarizable molecules and atoms. This concept has already been used to accelerate ultracold atoms in a very weak optical periodic potentials, or lattices, and acceleration up to the velocities in the m/s velocity was observed. We report on the study of acceleration of polarizable particles to velocities in excess of 10 km/s range in an accelerated optical lattice, using high intensity pulsed fields.