Production, Trapping and Spectroscopy of Antihydrogen – the ALPHA Experiment at CERN

Department Colloquia

Speaker: Walter Hardy, University of British Columbia
Date & Time: February 27, 2014 16:00 - 17:00
Location: UBC, Hennings 201
Local Contact: Doug Bonn, Robert Raussendorf
Intended Audience: Undergraduate

This talk will be partly an update on the status of the ALPHA experiment at CERN, a collaboration of about 40 scientists, more than 1/3 from Canada, and partly a look back at how and why a condensed matter experimenter like myself got involved with antihydrogen research. ALPHA stands for Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus: the goal is to compare the properties of H to H-bar with the highest possible precision, looking for any differences that might shed light on why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter. At the top of the list are the 1S-2S electronic transition and the hyperfine interval, known in H to 1 part in 1014 and 1 part in 1012, respectively. Also on the list are measurements of charge neutrality in antihydrogen and, eventually, the gravitational interaction between matter and antimatter.