The international team of scientists running the
ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus) experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), with the mission of isolating and studying animatter as antihydrogen atoms, announced trapping 309 antiatoms for 1000 seconds, in a paper published by the journal
Nature Physics.
As another digital journalist
reported, CERN announced the isolation and storing of anti-hydrogen atoms by the ALPHA experiment for a much shorter period in November 2010.
Antimatter is
real, not science fiction, scientists stress, but it is mysterious, still -- and most of it appears to be missing, at least
as far as our telescopes can see, due to our universe's, thus far, unexplained, apparent preference for "normal" matter. To learn more about the fundamental properties of matter, energy and nature, researchers want to compare normal matter and antimatter in detail, and discover the differences between the two, which may have made a whole universe of difference, since there would have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter at the Big Bang,
scientists theorize.
According to the article by the ALPHA team and other materials provided by CERN:
The 309 trapped antihydrogen atoms (or "antihydrogen annihilation events") are a sufficient quantity, and the 1000 second storage period is long enough, for precise mapping with microwave or laser spectrometry, so the researchers can compare the antihydrogen system with hydrogen's that is already very familiar to physicists
The trapped antihydrogen atoms could add to the work of the
AEgIS experiment that has been set up to measure the influence of gravity on antihydrogen.
A key benefit of trapping antihydrogen atoms for longer periods is being able to wait until they cool down into their lowest energy state (or ground state, as quantum systems go), to conduct the precision measurements necessary to test
CPT (Charge, Parity and Time) reversal symmetry, or detect signs of CPT breaking.
In a
written statement about the project's CPT symmetry investigation possibilities, ALPHA spokesperson and physicist Jeffrey Hangst of the Department of Aarhus University explained:
If nature follows CPT symmetry perfectly, a particle moving forward in time through this universe would be indistinguishable from an antiparticle moving backwards in time through its mirror universe, and the atomic spectra of hydrogen and antihydrogen would be identical.
But “any hint of CPT symmetry breaking would require a serious rethink of our understanding of nature.”
Measuring the trapped antihydrogen is the next project for ALPHA, due to begin later this year.
