The precise measurement of forces is one way to obtain deep insight into the fundamental interactions present in nature. In the context of neutral antimatter, the gravitational interaction is of high ...interest, potentially revealing new forces that violate the weak equivalence principle. Here we report on a successful extension of a tool from atom optics--the moiré deflectometer--for a measurement of the acceleration of slow antiprotons. The setup consists of two identical transmission gratings and a spatially resolving emulsion detector for antiproton annihilations. Absolute referencing of the observed antimatter pattern with a photon pattern experiencing no deflection allows the direct inference of forces present. The concept is also straightforwardly applicable to antihydrogen measurements as pursued by the AEgIS collaboration. The combination of these very different techniques from high energy and atomic physics opens a very promising route to the direct detection of the gravitational acceleration of neutral antimatter.
Here we present the first two-dimensional images of the virtual source of a supersonic helium expansion. The images were obtained using a free-standing Fresnel zone plate with an outermost zone width ...of 50 nm as imaging lens and a beam cooled to around 125 K. The nozzle diameter was 10 μm. The virtual source diameter was found to increase with stagnation pressure from 140 ± 30 μm at p o = 21 bar up to 270 ± 25 μm at p o = 101 bar. The experimental results are compared to a theoretical model based on the solution of the Boltzmann equation by the method of moments. The quantum mechanical cross sections used in the model have been calculated for the Lennard-Jones (LJ) and the Hurly-Moldover (HM) potentials. By using a scaling of the perpendicular temperature that parametrizes the perpendicular velocity distribution based on a continuum expansion approach, the LJ potential shows a good overall agreement with the experiment. However, at higher pressures the data points lie in between the two theoretical curves and the slope of the trend is more similar to the HM curve. Real gas corrections to enthalpy are considered but they affect the results less than the experimental errors.
The AEgIS experiment is an international collaboration with the main goal of performing the first direct measurement of the Earth's gravitational acceleration on antimatter. Critical to the success ...of AEgIS is the production of cold antihydrogen (H¯) atoms. The FACT detector is used to measure the production and temperature of the H¯ atoms and for establishing the formation of a H¯ beam. The operating requirements for this detector are very challenging: it must be able to identify each of the thousand or so annihilations in the 1ms period of pulsed H¯ production, operate at 4K inside a 1T solenoidal field and not produce more than 10W of heat. The FACT detector consists of two concentric cylindrical layers of 400 scintillator fibres with a 1mm diameter and a 0.6mm pitch. The scintillating fibres are coupled to clear fibres which transport the scintillation light to 800 silicon photomultipliers. Each silicon photomultiplier signal is connected to a linear amplifier and a fast discriminator, the outputs of which are sampled continuously by Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs).
In the course of the developments for the FACT detector we have established the performance of scintillating fibres at 4K by means of a cosmic-ray tracker operating in a liquid helium cryostat. The FACT detector was installed in the AEgIS apparatus in December 2012 and will be used to study the H¯ formation when the low energy antiproton physics programs resume at CERN in the Summer of 2014. This paper presents the design requirements and construction methods of the FACT detector and provides the first results of the detector commissioning.
Nonlinear inverse problems appear in many applications, and typically they lead to mathematical models that are ill-posed, i.e., they are unstable under data perturbations. Those problems require a ...regularization, i.e., a special numerical treatment. This book presents regularization schemes which are based on iteration methods, e.g., nonlinear Landweber iteration, level set methods, multilevel methods and Newton type methods.
A piezoelectric single-pole single-throw (SPST) switch has been developed, since there is no satisfying commercial low-resistance, high current DC-contact RF switch available which is operable at ...4.2K and in a high magnetic field of at least 0.5T. This piezoelectric switch shows very low insertion loss of less than −0.1dB within a bandwidth of 100MHz when operated at 4.2K. The switch could also be used to mechanically disconnect and connect electrodes or electrical circuits from one another.
We describe a system designed to re-bunch positron pulses delivered by an accumulator supplied by a positron source and a Surko-trap. Positron pulses from the accumulator are magnetically guided in a ...0.085T field and are injected into a region free of magnetic fields through a μ-metal field terminator. Here positrons are temporally compressed, electrostatically guided and accelerated towards a porous silicon target for the production and emission of positronium into vacuum. Positrons are focused in a spot of less than 4mm FWTM in bunches of ∼8ns FWHM. Emission of positronium into the vacuum is shown by single shot positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy.
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