The BASE worldwide analysis collaboration, during which Heinrich Heine College Düsseldorf (HHU) is strongly concerned, has efficiently relocated protons outdoors of an antimatter laboratory for the primary time with the assistance of an autonomous, open Penning lure. This breakthrough marks a major step towards transporting antiprotons produced on the European Organisation for Nuclear Analysis (CERN) to high-precision laboratories equivalent to BASE-HHU, which function independently of the analysis facility. Because the researchers now clarify within the scientific journal Nature, extraordinarily exact measurements to match matter and antimatter are solely doable removed from accelerator amenities.
Protons are the fundamental constructing blocks of matter. Along with neutrons, they type atomic nuclei. These minute, positively charged particles have an antimatter counterpart, antiprotons. Whereas the latter have a unfavourable cost and a reversed magnetic second, they’re in any other case equivalent to protons — a minimum of in line with the Commonplace Mannequin of particle physics.
The BASE collaboration (Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment) primarily based at CERN in Geneva is looking for minuscule variations between protons and antiprotons. Professor Dr Stefan Ulmer, physicist at HHU and the founder and spokesperson of the BASE collaboration, explains: “We want a particularly excessive degree of measuring accuracy to have the ability to establish doable variations within the magnetic second or charge-to-mass ratio. It’s just about unattainable to realize this near CERN’s accelerators, although, because the magnetic disturbance that the accelerators there generate is just too excessive. Accordingly, we wish to carry antiprotons produced at CERN to Düsseldorf to measure them right here in a brand new, extraordinarily nicely shielded laboratory.”
Excessive-precision measurements of this sort require low-energy antiprotons, which may solely be produced at CERN. Particularly, within the Antimatter Manufacturing facility (AMF) on the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) the place the experiment relies. The antiprotons have already efficiently been decelerated and confined in a so-called Penning lure (HHU information from 2 August 2024)).
Relocating the antiprotons to a different laboratory that’s many a whole lot of kilometres away is a extremely advanced process. The BASE group has taken a decisive step on this regard by creating a sturdy, transportable, superconducting, open and autonomous Penning-trap system referred to as BASE-STEP. This technique permits antiprotons to be injected and ejected from the lure, and thus transferred to different experiments. They used it for the primary time in autumn 2024 to extract a proton cloud from the AMF and transport it by truck throughout CERN’s predominant website.
Marcel Leonhardt, a grasp’s pupil of Professor Ulmer and lead creator of the publication: “We had been capable of reveal the loss-free relocation of protons, maintain autonomous operation with out exterior energy for 4 hours and proceed to function the lure loss-free afterwards. An necessary step that reveals that particles can thus be relocated over longer distances in regular street visitors.”
Dr Christian Smorra from HHU, BASE-STEP Venture Chief and senior scientist in BASE provides: “Cellular energy turbines can be utilized to extend the transport vary of the system at will, enabling longer transport routes and occasions. Our imaginative and prescient is to have the ability to attain laboratories throughout Europe sooner or later.”
Now that the transport system’s performance has been confirmed with protons, the subsequent step is to sort out the relocation of antiprotons. Smorra: “If we additionally handle this, then it would mark the potential rise of a brand new period in antimatter precision analysis. We may then carry out antiproton spectroscopy in essentially the most appropriate laboratories — so, additionally at HHU sooner or later.”
The expertise presents but extra prospects. Professor Ulmer concludes: “It needs to be doable to move different unique particles and molecules equivalent to highly-charged ions, for instance from GSI in Darmstadt, or charged antimatter ions and molecular ions and to check them independently of accelerators.”
The analysis was primarily funded with the European Analysis Council (ERC) Beginning Grant acquired by Dr Smorra.
Background: Excessive-precision experiments on CPT invariance
With antiprotons as fundamental constituents of antimatter, stringent matter-antimatter comparisons are doable. The underlying query is whether or not matter and antimatter differ in traits equivalent to mass, cost and magnetic second. In line with the Commonplace Mannequin of particle physics, there shouldn’t be any variations. Nevertheless, the genesis of matter after the Huge Bang means that variations should actually exist.
Amongst different issues, the researchers sought to check the basic charge-parity-time (CPT) reversal invariance within the Commonplace Mannequin of particle physics. This states that any course of that arises from one other doable course of by swapping matter with antimatter and moreover mirroring house and reversing time additionally complies with the legal guidelines of physics and is thus doable.
Low-energy antiprotons had been used on the AMF to carry out such checks within the high-precision spectroscopy of antiprotonic atoms (atoms during which the electron has been changed by an antiproton) and antihydrogen. When evaluating the magnetic moments of protons and antiprotons, BASE has up to now achieved a precision of 1.5 elements per billion.
The collaboration additionally achieved essentially the most exact check of CPT invariance so far for baryons (heavy particles often consisting of three quarks, together with the proton and antiproton) by evaluating their charge-to-mass ratio. A relative uncertainty of 16 elements per trillion was achieved.
