Traps for antimatter and antihydrogen production

摘要

Even though positrons have been captured and stored in ion traps for precision measurements, the recent trapping and cooling of antiprotons may be considered as the beginning of a new era in antimatter research. For the first time all the ingredients to produce the first atom of the antimatter world, the antihydrogen atom, are at hand, and several groups have entered an active discussion on the feasibility of producing antihydrogen as well as on the possibility to perform precision tests on CPT and gravity. At the same time, the trapping of reasonable large numbers of antiprotons has opened up the way for a variety of exciting physics with ultra-low energy antiprotons, ranging from atomic physics issues to nuclear physics and medical applications. I will describe the current status of the work on trapping antiprotons and positrons, discuss possible physics applications of this technique, and describe the two most promising routes to produce antihydrogen for precision spectroscopy. Towards the end a few comments on storing the produced antihydrogen and on utilizing antihydrogen for gravity measurements and for CPT tests are given.