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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Today at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, antiprotons have been transported across the site in a specially designed trap for the first time ever. This world premiere is a great success for the BASE collaboration, which is headed by Professor Dr Stefan Ulmer from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU). It is the first step toward transporting antimatter to other European laboratories. One such facility is the new high-precision laboratory being established at HHU, where the intention is to measure and compare the properties of antiprotons and protons with an unprecedented level of accuracy.
The antiprotons were produced at the “Antimatter Factory” (AMF) at CERN, the only facility worldwide capable of producing these special low-energy particles. The BASE (Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment) research team has now succeeded in accumulating a cloud of around 100 antiprotons in a transportable trap known as a Penning trap. This trap was then disconnected from the stationary experimental facility, loaded onto a truck, then driven around the CERN site and finally reconnected to the experimental facility.
Professor Stefan Ulmer, BASE spokesperson and holder of the Chair of Quantum Technologies and Fundamental Symmetries at HHU: “A significant amount of know-how is required to confine and store antiprotons for a longer period of time, as antimatter annihilates immediately on contact with matter. For this reason, the antiparticles must be stored in an ultra-high vacuum using electric and magnetic fields to ensure they do not come into contact with residual gas particles or the storage vessel.”
But why make all this effort? The BASE collaboration is aiming to measure the properties of antiprotons, such as their intrinsic magnetic moment, extremely precisely and compare these results with those obtained for protons. BASE has long held the record for storing antiprotons for longer than a year at its stationary facility at the AMF.
However, to achieve even higher levels of precision, the physicists must overcome a problem: The accelerators at the AMF at CERN – where BASE is located – generate magnetic field fluctuations, which limit the degree of precision that can be achieved. “If we want to get a deeper understanding of the fundamental properties of antiprotons, we need an environment with less interference, which in turn means that we need to move out – for example to our laboratory for high-precision measurements of antiproton properties being established at HHU. That’s why we began designing a transportable trap around ten years ago and have developed it within the framework of the collaboration under the lead of Christian Smorra,” says Ulmer. The world premiere at CERN is an important test for this “relocation”: It demonstrates that it is technically possible to transport antiprotons to other European laboratories.
“Our aim with BASE-STEP is to be able to trap antiprotons and deliver them to precision laboratories at a dedicated space at CERN, to HHU, Leibniz University Hannover and maybe other laboratories, where the extremely precise antiproton measurements can be realised,” explains Dr Christian Smorra, member of Ulmer’s research group in Düsseldorf and head of the STEP project (Symmetry Tests in Experiments with Portable antiprotons) funded by the European Research Council (ERC). “We validated the feasibility of the project with protons last year, but what we achieved today with antiprotons is a huge leap forward toward our objective.”
BASE-STEP traps the antiparticles using magnetic and electric fields. The apparatus weighs around 850 kg. It can be loaded onto a truck, fits through standard laboratory doors and can withstand the jolts and vibrations during transport by road. It includes a superconducting magnet, liquid helium cryogenic cooling, power reserves and a vacuum chamber. This makes it significantly more compact than any other existing system for examining antimatter.
“To date, we have stored antiprotons loss-free in BASE-STEP for two weeks and can transport the trap autonomously for four hours,” says Smorra. “However, to reach our laboratory at HHU, it would take us at least ten hours. This means we’ll have to keep the trap’s superconducting magnet at a temperature below 8.2 K (-265°C) for that long.” Instead of liquid helium, which can run out, a generator will be needed to power a cryocooler on the truck.
“Transporting antimatter is a pioneering and ambitious project, and I congratulate the BASE collaboration on this impressive milestone. We are at the beginning of an exciting scientific journey that will allow us to further deepen our understanding of antimatter,” says Dr Gautier Hamel de Monchenault, Director for Research and Computing at CERN.
Professor Dr Anja Steinbeck, President of HHU, congratulated the researchers on their great success: “The scientific and technical feat achieved by the team headed by Professor Ulmer and Dr Smorra helps integrate research at major facilities and universities further. And lays the foundation for answering fundamental scientific questions in Düsseldorf – an extremely exciting prospect.”
Matter, antimatter and the AMF Antimatter Factory
For every particle of matter, there is an antimatter particle. They are virtually identical, apart from the fact that the charges and magnetic properties are reversed. According to the laws of physics, the Big Bang should have generated equal amounts of matter and antimatter. However, the particles and antiparticles should have quickly annihilated with each other to leave behind an empty Universe. Yet, the Universe comprises matter, meaning that an imbalance must exist. This has baffled researchers for decades. Physicists surmise that hidden differences exist, which can explain why matter ultimately survived and antimatter disappeared.
The AMF at CERN is the only site worldwide where low-energy antiprotons can be produced, stored and studied. Two so-called decelerators, the “Antiproton Decelerator” (AD) and the “Extra Low ENergy Antiproton Ring” (ELENA), supply several experiments with antiprotons. The lower the energy of the antimatter, the easier it can be stored for study purposes.
The BASE collaboration and BASE-STEP
The BASE (Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment) collaboration established in 2012 and based at the AMF at CERN, involves research institutes in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and Switzerland including:
- National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB), Braunschweig
- GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt
- Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
- European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva
- Leibniz University Hannover
- Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg
- Imperial College London
- Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
- RIKEN, Japan
- University of Tokyo
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
The founder and spokesperson of the collaboration is Professor Stefan Ulmer, holder of the Chair of Quantum Technologies and Fundamental Symmetries at HHU. He is also Chief Scientist at RIKEN in Japan.
Within the framework of the BASE collaboration, the STEP project – in which the transportable antiproton trap was developed – is funded by the ERC. This project is headed by Dr Christian Smorra.
Caption picture 2:
Dr Christian Smorra from HHU, head of the ERC project BASE-STEP (left), and Prof. Dr Stefan Ulmer, spokesperson for the BASE collaboration and holder of the Chair of Quantum Technology and Fundamental Symmetries at HHU. In the background, the portable trap is hovering on the crane hook. (Photo: CERN)
https://www.antimatter.hhu.de/en/chair-prof-ulmer/dr-smorra-quantum-technologies...
https://base.web.cern.ch/
“Antimatter in motion”: The BASE-STEP trap, loaded with antiprotons, has been loaded onto the truck ...
Copyright: CERN
Dr Christian Smorra (left), and Prof. Dr Stefan Ulmer. A detailed caption can be found at the end of ...
Copyright: CERN
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