Optimizing Antihydrogen Production via Slow Plasma Merging

TL;DR

This study improves antihydrogen production efficiency by optimizing plasma merging conditions, achieving a twentyfold increase in yield over previous methods through temperature and spatial control of antiprotons and positrons.

Contribution

It introduces a method to optimize antihydrogen synthesis by controlling plasma parameters, significantly increasing production yield.

Findings

Maximum antihydrogen yield occurs at lowest positron temperature.

Smaller radius entry of antiprotons enhances atom formation.

Optimized parameters produce 20 times more antihydrogen than previous methods.

Abstract

We measure the time-dependent temperature and density distribution of antiprotons and positrons while slowly combining them to make antihydrogen atoms in a nested Penning-Malmberg trap. The total antihydrogen yield and the number of atoms escaping the trap as a beam are greatest when the positron temperature is lowest and when antiprotons enter the positron plasma at the smallest radius. We control these parameters by changing the rate at which we lower the electrostatic barrier between the antiproton and positron plasmas and by heating the positrons. With the optimal settings, we produce $2.3\times 10^6$ antihydrogen atoms per $15$-minute run, surpassing the previous state of the art -- $3.1\times 10^4$ atoms in $4$ minutes -- by a factor of $20$.