The performance of a caesium fountain frequency reference for use in precision measurements of trapped antihydrogen in the ALPHA experiment at CERN is evaluated. A description of the fountain is provided together with a characterisation of systematic effects. The impact of the magnetic environment in the Antimatter Factory, where the fountain is installed, on the performance of the fountain is considered and shown to be insignificant.
J Nauta, E Thorpe-Woods, J Whale, A Wilson, A N Oliveira, V R Marshall, J Schoonwater, A Ashkhasi, C Ø Rasmussen, N Madsen, J S Hangst, K Gibble, K Szymaniec, R J Hendricks and S Eriksson
We develop a new algorithm to estimate the temperature of a nonneutral plasma in a Penning-Malmberg trap. The algorithm analyzes data obtained by slowly lowering a voltage that confines one end of the plasma and collecting escaping charges, and is a maximum likelihood estimator based on a physically-motivated model of the escape protocol presented in (Beck in Measurement of the magnetic and temperature dependence of the electron-electron anisotropic temperature relaxation rate.
