Fleeting antimatter trapped for a quarter of an hour

摘要

WHAT can you do with a quarter of an hour? Write a few emails, cook rice - or store antimatter. The team working on the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, have stored atoms of antihydrogen for 1000 seconds - roughly 10,000 times longer than before. This should help reveal if antimatter and matter are true mirror images. Antihydrogen atoms are annihilated by hydrogen. The ALPHA team want to keep antimatter intact long enough to study it, so last year they worked out how to hold a cloud of antihydrogen in a magnetic trap.