Abstract
Motivated by the baryogenesis problem (the scarcity of antimatter in the University), CERN's ALPHA collaboration has been studying the properties of antihydrogen atoms. Since 2010, we have been able to trap over 1000 antiatoms, and have kept some trapped for as long as 1000s. We have measured the spin flip frequency of these antiatoms to 0.1%, and the charge of the antiatoms to 0.7ppb; both of these studies search for CPT violations. We have just concluded our first search for the 1s-2s transition by illuminating antiatoms held within a 243nm laser cavity. We have also been able to set crude bounds on the gravitational properties of these antiatoms (antimatter g limited by +/-100g), and are constructing a new apparatus designed to measure the antimatter g to 1%. This talk will describe how we trap antihydrogen, and discuss our physics results.
Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the seminar.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.