Be+ assisted, simultaneous confinement of more than 15000 antihydrogen atoms

Refereed Publication

Antihydrogen, the bound state of a positron and an antiproton, is the only pure anti-atomic system ever studied. It is produced exclusively in the laboratory, as it has never been observed in nature. This unique system is of great interest for searching for tentative differences between matter and antimatter. Anti-hydrogen has been routinely trapped since 2010 and accumulated since 2017, enabling, for example, the rst precision spectroscopic study of the anti-atom in 2018 and the rst observation of the in uence of gravity in 2023. Here we report an eight-fold increase in the trapping rate of antihydrogen, enabled by sympathetic cooling of positrons with laser-cooled beryllium ions. With beryllium sympathetic cooling, we now accumulate over 15000 antihydrogen atoms in under seven hours. This technique transforms our ability to study systematic and sidereal effects in existing experiments while paving the way for studies that would otherwise remain out of reach.

R. Akbari, L. O. de Araujo Azevedo, C. J. Baker, W. Bertsche, N. M. Bhatt, G. Bonomi, A. Capra, I. Carli, C. L. Cesar, M. Charlton, A. Cridland Mathad, A. Del Vincio, D. Duque Quiceno, S. J. Eriksson, A. Evans, J. Ewins, J. Fajans, T. Friesen, M. C. Fujiwara, L. M. Golino, M. B. Gomes Gonçalves, J. S. Hangst , M. E. Hayden, D. Hodgkinson, C. A. Isaac, A. J. U. Jimenez, S. A. Jones, S. Jonsell, N. Madsen, V. R. Marshall, J. T. K. McKenna, T. Momose,, J. Nauta, A. N. Oliveira, J. Peszka, A. Powell, C. Ø. Rasmussen, T. Robertson-Brown, F. Robicheaux, R. L. Sacramento, E. Sarid, J. Schoonwater, D. M. Silveira, J. Singh, G. Smith, C. So, S. Stracka, J. Suh, A. G. Swadling, T. D. Tharp, K. A. Thompson, R. I. Thompson, E. Thorpe-Woods, M. Urioni, D. P. van der Werf, P. Woosaree and  J. S. Wurtele

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65085-4

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