Jun 6, 2011 06:15 GMT  ·  By
An artistic representation of the ALPHA neutral antimatter trap, suggesting the nature of the ALPHA apparatus as a container for antihydrogen
   An artistic representation of the ALPHA neutral antimatter trap, suggesting the nature of the ALPHA apparatus as a container for antihydrogen

A collaboration of physicists working at the world's largest particle accelerator announce that it is possible to trap antihydrogen atoms for nearly 17 minutes inside containment chambers.

In total, the ALPHA Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) managed to trap 309 atoms, some of which endured for as much as 1,000 seconds. The physicists say that it is theoretically possible to contain antimatter atoms for prolonged periods of time.

The LHC is the most energetic particle accelerator in the world. It is operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in Geneva Switzerland. Its 27-kilometer circular tunnels span below the French-Swiss border.

The accelerator features three primary instruments, including ALPHA. Experts here were the ones who managed to store antimatter atoms for the first time ever, back in November 2010. At that time, they only managed to trap 38 antihydrogen atoms.

Over the ensuing interval, the collaboration managed to trap more and more atoms, and developed methods of storing them for ever-increasing periods of time. The team says that it takes about 15 minutes for antimatter atoms to be produced and trapped inside the particle detector.

“Perhaps the most important aspect of this result is that after just one second the antihydrogen atoms had surely already decayed to ground state,” explains ALPHA Collaboration member Joel Fajans.

“These were likely the first ground-state anti-atoms ever made,” adds the expert, who is a professor of physics at the University of California in Berkeley (UCB). He is also a member of the Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD).

The AFRD is part of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), which is involved in the international effort. UCB/AFRD expert Jonathan Wurtele was the co-investigator of the experiments.

“So far, the only way we know whether we’ve caught an anti-atom is to turn off the magnet,” Fajans goes on to say. A superconducting octupole magnet proposed by AFRD investigators is the main tool ALPHA uses to make its captures and measurements.

“When the anti-atom hits the wall of the trap it annihilates, which tells us that we got one. In the beginning we were turning off our trap as soon as possible after each attempt to make anti-atoms, so as not to miss any,” the expert goes on to say.

He adds that 1,000 seconds is sufficiently long to allow experts to measure the properties of these atoms. During these 16-17 minutes of confinement, antimatter atoms can be probed using radiation or laser light.

At CERN, “it’s even enough time to go for coffee,” Fajans concludes jokingly. Details of the new work appear in a paper entitled “Confinement of antihydrogen for 1000 seconds,” which is published in the latest issue of the top scientific journal Nature Physics.

The US portion of funds for this study was collected from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the DOE Office of Science.