Antimatter Research: Advances of AEgIS

TL;DR

The AEgIS experiment at CERN has made significant progress in producing cold antihydrogen and developing methods to measure its gravitational behavior, advancing antimatter research.

Contribution

This paper reports the first production of a pulsed cold antihydrogen source and major upgrades enabling gravitational measurements of antimatter.

Findings

Successful production of pulsed cold antihydrogen

Integration with CERN's ELENA facility for antiproton deceleration

Progress towards gravitational free-fall measurement of antimatter

Abstract

The AEgIS collaboration is underway to directly measure the gravitational free-fall of neutral antimatter atoms. The experiment recently succeded in producing a pulsed cold antihydrogen source for the first time, and has now entered into its second phase, which aims at the formation of a slow antihydrogen beam and subseuqently a first proof-of-concept gravitational measurement. Major upgrades have been made, such as an improved antihydrogen production scheme and a new state-of-the-art antiproton trap. AEgIS was also connected to CERN's new antiproton deceleration facility ELENA and achieved first antiproton catching in late 2021.