Background-Free Observation of Cold Antihydrogen with Field-Ionization Analysis of Its States

2002/10/31 by G. Gabrielse, N. S. Bowden, Paul Oxley +12 · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Chemistry · #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications

paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.89.213401

openalex publication_date 2002/10/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21

Abstract

A background-free observation of cold antihydrogen atoms is made using field ionization followed by antiproton storage, a detection method that provides the first experimental information about antihydrogen atomic states. More antihydrogen atoms can be field ionized in an hour than all the antimatter atoms that have been previously reported, and the production rate per incident high energy antiproton is higher than ever observed. The high rate and the high Rydberg states suggest that the antihydrogen is formed via three-body recombination.

Citations

• Cooling and slowing of trapped antiprotons below 100 meV

Cited by

• Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds
• Emerging science and technology of antimatter plasmas and trap-based beams
• Observation of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen
• Cold antihydrogen: a new frontier in fundamental physics
• An experimental test of the weak equivalence principle for antihydrogen at the future FLAIR facility
• A brief review of antimatter production
• Matter-gravity couplings and Lorentz violation
• Antiproton mass measurements
• Antimatter [wikipedia]