Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

An experimental limit on the charge of antihydrogen

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4955· OSTI ID:1623940
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [2];  [8];  [15];  [11] more »;  [3];  [8];  [16];  [6];  [8];  [16];  [11];  [11];  [3];  [16];  [17];  [18];  [19];  [7];  [3];  [3];  [10];  [8];  [3];  [9];  [9];  [3] « less
  1. York Univ., Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; DOE/OSTI
  2. Simon Fraser Univ., Burnaby, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics
  3. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
  4. Univ. of Manchester (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy; The Cockcroft Inst., Warrington (United Kingdom). Daresbury Lab.
  5. Imperial College, London (United Kingdom). Centre for Cold Matter; European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland). Physics Dept.
  6. York Univ., Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  7. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). Instituto de Fısica
  8. Swansea Univ. (United Kingdom). College of Science, Dept. of Physics
  9. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  10. Univ. of Calgary, AB (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  11. TRIUMF, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
  12. Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  13. Centre for Cold Matter; European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva (Switzerland). Physics Dept.; Aarhus Univ. (Denmark). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  14. Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Canadian Inst. of Advanced Research, Toronto, ON (Canada)
  15. Stockholm Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Physics
  16. Univ. of Liverpool (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics
  17. Aarhus Univ. (Denmark). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  18. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics
  19. NRCN-Nuclear Research Center Negev, Beer Sheva IL-(Israel). Dept. of Physics
+ Show Author Affiliations
The properties of antihydrogen are expected to be identical to those of hydrogen, and any differences would constitute a profound challenge to the fundamental theories of physics. The most commonly discussed antiatom-based tests of these theories are searches for antihydrogen-hydrogen spectral differences (tests of CPT (charge-parity-time) invariance) or gravitational differences (tests of the weak equivalence principle). Here we, the ALPHA Collaboration, report a different and somewhat unusual test of CPT and of quantum anomaly cancellation. A retrospective analysis of the influence of electric fields on antihydrogen atoms released from the ALPHA trap finds a mean axial deflection of 4.1±3.4 mm for an average axial electric field of 0.51 V mm–1. Combined with extensive numerical modelling, this measurement leads to a bound on the charge Qe of antihydrogen of Q=(–1.3±1.1±0.4) × 10–8. Here, e is the unit charge, and the errors are from statistics and systematic effects.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1623940
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 5; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (41)

Trapped antihydrogen journal November 2010
Nonlinear dynamics of anti-hydrogen in magnetostatic traps: implications for gravitational measurements journal October 2013
Synthesis of Cold Antihydrogen in a Cusp Trap journal December 2010
Autoresonant Excitation of Antiproton Plasmas journal January 2011
Trapped Antihydrogen in Its Ground State journal March 2012
Background-Free Observation of Cold Antihydrogen with Field-Ionization Analysis of Its States journal October 2002
Determination of the Antiproton-to-Electron Mass Ratio by Precision Laser Spectroscopy of p ¯ He + journal June 2006
Antimatter interferometry for gravity measurements text January 2013
Progress towards microwave spectroscopy of trapped antihydrogen journal November 2011
Production of antihydrogen journal February 1996
A magnetic trap for antihydrogen confinement
  • Bertsche, W.; Boston, A.; Bowe, P. D.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 566, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2006.07.012
journal October 2006
Antihydrogen annihilation reconstruction with the ALPHA silicon detector
  • Andresen, G. B.; Ashkezari, M. D.; Bertsche, W.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 684 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.04.082
journal August 2012
The ALPHA antihydrogen trapping apparatus
  • Amole, C.; Andresen, G. B.; Ashkezari, M. D.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 735 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2013.09.043
journal January 2014
Proposed antimatter gravity measurement with an antihydrogen beam
  • Kellerbauer, A.; Amoretti, M.; Belov, A. S.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Vol. 266, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2007.12.010
journal February 2008
Search for trapped antihydrogen journal January 2011
Experiments to determine the Force of Gravity on Single Electrons and Positrons journal November 1968
Production and detection of cold antihydrogen atoms journal September 2002
Two-photon laser spectroscopy of antiprotonic helium and the antiproton-to-electron mass ratio journal July 2011
Resonant quantum transitions in trapped antihydrogen atoms journal March 2012
Description and first application of a new technique to measure the gravitational mass of antihydrogen journal April 2013
Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds journal January 2011
Macroscopic variations of surface potentials of conductors journal May 1991
Antimatter journal May 1997
Production of antihydrogen at reduced magnetic field for anti-atom trapping journal December 2007
A proposal for laser cooling antihydrogen atoms journal January 2013
Discriminating between antihydrogen and mirror-trapped antiprotons in a minimum-B trap journal January 2012
In situ electromagnetic field diagnostics with an electron plasma in a Penning–Malmberg trap journal January 2014
Measurement of the positronium 1 3 S 1 –2 3 S 1 interval by continuous-wave two-photon excitation journal July 1993
Testing the neutrality of matter by acoustic means in a spherical resonator journal May 2011
Review of Particle Physics journal July 2012
Synthesis of Cold Antihydrogen in a Cusp Trap journal December 2010
Autoresonant Excitation of Antiproton Plasmas journal January 2011
Trapped Antihydrogen in Its Ground State journal March 2012
Antimatter Interferometry for Gravity Measurements journal March 2014
Cooling Neutral Atoms in a Magnetic Trap for Precision Spectroscopy journal October 1983
Electric charges of positrons and antiprotons journal July 1992
Precision Mass Spectroscopy of the Antiproton and Proton Using Simultaneously Trapped Particles journal April 1999
Measurement of the 1 s − 2 s Energy Interval in Muonium journal February 2000
Background-Free Observation of Cold Antihydrogen with Field-Ionization Analysis of Its States journal October 2002
Determination of the Antiproton-to-Electron Mass Ratio by Precision Laser Spectroscopy of p ¯ He + journal June 2006
Antihydrogen Physics at ALPHA/CERNThis paper was presented at the International Conference on Precision Physics of Simple Atomic Systems, held at University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada on 21–26 July 2008. journal July 2009

Cited By (15)

Simulations of Majorana spin flips in an antihydrogen trap journal July 2019
Prospects for comparison of matter and antimatter gravitation with ALPHA-g journal February 2018
In-beam measurement of the hydrogen hyperfine splitting - towards antihydrogen spectroscopy text January 2016
Observation of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen journal December 2016
Precision measurement of the mass difference between light nuclei and anti-nuclei journal August 2015
Physics with antihydrogen journal October 2015
Advanced multiconfiguration methods for complex atoms: I. Energies and wave functions journal September 2016
Axial to transverse energy mixing dynamics in octupole-based magnetostatic antihydrogen traps journal May 2018
On the formation of trappable antihydrogen journal April 2018
Precision measurements on trapped antihydrogen in the ALPHA experiment journal February 2018
Formation of H ¯ + via radiative attachment of e + to H ¯ journal January 2020
Search for new physics with atoms and molecules journal June 2018
Precision measurement of the mass difference between light nuclei and anti-nuclei text January 2015
Search for New Physics with Atoms and Molecules text January 2017
Simulations of Majorana spin flips in an antihydrogen trap text January 2019

Similar Records

The ALPHA Experiment: A Cold Antihydrogen Trap
Journal Article · Wed Oct 26 00:00:00 EDT 2005 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:20726680
Collaborative Research: Experimental and Theoretical Study of the Plasma Physics of Antihydrogen Generation and Trapping (Final Technical Report)
Technical Report · Wed Apr 10 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · OSTI ID:1504778
Electron plasmas as a diagnostic tool for hyperfine spectroscopy of antihydrogen
Journal Article · Tue Mar 19 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · AIP Conference Proceedings · OSTI ID:22113535

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Atomic and molecular physics
Experimental particle physics
Science & Technology - Other Topics