Miniaturisation of a transportable reservoir of antiprotons

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Smorra
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields ; Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558683350

This project will develop a new instrument for research in fundamental physics: a compact transportable antiproton reservoir based on a cryogenic permanent magnet Penning trap. This device will facilitate an offline precision measurement program on low-energy antiprotons outside of the noisy environment of CERN’s antiproton production facility, and provide the opportunity to multiply the number of low energy antiproton experiments. To this end, we will build and test a transportable permanent magnet Penning trap, and develop the important technical components to realize the miniaturized antiproton storage trap. A cryogenic trap chamber will contain antiprotons at ultra-low pressure with the aim to reach storage times of several months. This is required to deliver the antiprotons to a dedicated spectroscopy instrument that can operate in an ultra-low noise environment suited to advance precision measurements of the fundamental properties of protons and antiprotons. It is an essential development to advance matter/antimatter comparisons and the sensitivity in testing the limits of the Standard Model of particle physics, in particular of CPT invariance that manifests a fundamental symmetry between particles and antiparticles. Additional applications for this instrument would be to distribute other exotic ions for spectroscopy experiments, for example fully-stripped highly-charged ions that can only be produced in accelerators or ultra high-end electron beam ion sources, or other antimatter ions such as the antihydrogen molecular ion, or the positive antihydrogen ion.

• DFG Programme: New Instrumentation for Research