Scientists advance antimatter research in breakthrough CERN experiment

The scientists from Warsaw University of Technology contributed to a breakthrough experiment, potentially paving the way for new opportunities in antimatter research. As part of this experiment, the scientists successfully cooled an antielectron sample using laser light. The experiment was undertaken at the Swiss laboratory CERN and has been detailed in the esteemed scientific journal "Physical Review Letters".

The international team of scientists at CERN aims to accurately measure the acceleration rate of a neutral atom of antihydrogen falling in Earth's gravitational field. The AEgIS project (Antimatter Experiment: gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) combines these measurements with efforts to test the so-called weak principle of equivalence. This principle posits that a body’s free fall does not depend on its mass, composition, or internal structure. The scientists want to explore whether this principle applies to objects constructed from antimatter.

Antihydrogen generation, namely a positron orbiting an antiproton, is a sophisticated process. An antiproton beam, produced and slowed in the antimatter factory, is directed at a cloud of positronium, which is essentially an electron orbiting a positron. This cloud is produced by placing positrons in nanoporous silica. When the antiproton meets with the positron in the positronium cloud, the cloud donates its positron to the antiproton, hence creating antihydrogen.

This process, however, is intricate and poses several challenges. The whole antimatter system, positronium, has a very short lifespan—it decays into gamma quanta within 142 billionths of a second. Nevertheless, its straightforward construction makes it highly appealing for research and paves the way for searching for new physical phenomena. Nevertheless, this necessitates extreme cooling of the positronium sample.

The scientists from Warsaw University of Technology made significant progress in this area by improving the experiment's control system. According to the Warsaw University of Technology press office, the scientists successfully reduced the sample's temperature from 380 to 37 degrees Celsius. They achieved this by using a unique, broadband laser that can cool a larger portion of the sample.

The scientists anticipate that this groundbreaking step will enable highly precise measurements of matter-antimatter systems. This could potentially lead to the discovery of new physical laws. In the long term, the AEgIS experiments could make creating a gamma radiation laser—a technology potentially extremely useful in basic and applied research—possible.

"The team from Warsaw University of Technology contributed to upgrading the experiment's control system at CERN. We introduced open-source Sinara/ARTIQ software and an open hardware-based solution, instead of custom-made electronics. This control system is used to manage individual components of the apparatus and schedule experiment sequences. Our group also took part in creating online visualisations and developing a data processing platform," said Dr. Georgy Kornakov, leader of the team of scientists from PW working in the scientific consortium AEgIS.