Evidence For The Production Of Slow Antiprotonic Hydrogen In Vacuum

TL;DR

This paper provides evidence that antiprotonic hydrogen can be produced in vacuum with low kinetic energy and specific quantum states, enabling future spectroscopic studies of this exotic system.

Contribution

It demonstrates the synthesis of slow antiprotonic hydrogen via antiproton interactions with H2+ ions in a Penning trap, a novel experimental achievement.

Findings

Antiprotonic hydrogen produced with sub-eV energies.

Production occurs in states around n=70 with low angular momentum.

Evidence based on spatial distribution analysis of annihilation events.

Abstract

We present evidence showing how antiprotonic hydrogen, the quasistable antiproton-proton (pbar-p) bound system, has been synthesized following the interaction of antiprotons with the hydrogen molecular ion (H2+) in a nested Penning trap environment. From a careful analysis of the spatial distributions of antiproton annihilation events, evidence is presented for antiprotonic hydrogen production with sub-eV kinetic energies in states around n=70, and with low angular momenta. The slow antiprotonic hydrogen may be studied using laser spectroscopic techniques.