Antihydrogen trapped at long last

slade_x

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827874.500-antihydrogen-trapped-at-long-last.html

ATOMS made of antimatter have been trapped for the first time, a feat that will allow us to test whether antimatter responds to the fundamental forces in the same way as regular matter.

Antiparticles are the oppositely charged twins of normal particles. Since matter and antimatter annihilate on contact, antimatter experiments have been limited to using charged antiparticles, which can be corralled within electromagnetic traps.

Several teams have made antihydrogen atoms in the past, but no one had managed to trap them for detailed experiments as they have no net charge. Now an experiment called the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, has finally managed to ensnare atoms of antihydrogen.
ALPHA produced anti-atoms by combining antiprotons from CERN's Antiproton Decelerator ring with positrons emitted by a radioactive isotope of sodium. Where it went one better than previous experiments was in being able to manipulate the anti-atoms magnetically.

Even though anti-atoms are electrically neutral, they do behave like tiny magnets and will respond to a magnetic field. This response is so weak, however, that the anti-atoms have to be moving very slowly if they are to be captured magnetically.
With this in mind, the ALPHA team members tried to ............ continue reading at above link

djhaxman

A good lecture from that link, explains antihydrogen well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sqYh8puZ-I

riffmongous

What really surprised me was how long they lasted, 2 tenths of a second each according to the BBC website, now its been a little while since I did particle physics but that seems like a pretty long time no?

AlmightyCushion

What does uncle hydrogen have to say about this.

wylo

riffmongous wrote: »

What really surprised me was how long they lasted, 2 tenths of a second each according to the BBC website, now its been a little while since I did particle physics but that seems like a pretty long time no?

probably not long enough to get us to Mars in a month, but its a start.