New CERN facility to harvest antimatter

17 Jun 2002

CERN, the international physics research center, will build a new experimental facility, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) by transforming an existing CERN machinethe "Antiproton Collector", which produces and stores antiprotons into a "all-in-one" machine which can, in addition, decelerate, cool, and eject antiprotons at lowenergies (5.8 MeV). The transformation will cost about 7 million Swiss Francs, and will be funded by special contributions from several countries, includingDenmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland and the United States.

The main goal of the new facility is to allow a community of about 150 physicists to continue their efforts to work with ultra low energy antiprotons, in particular forthe purpose of antihydrogen research. Antihydrogen is an atom made entirely of antiparticles: while ordinary hydrogen consists of a positive proton with a negativeelectron orbiting around it, the antihydrogen atom has a negative "antiproton" in the center bound to a positive "positron."