TORONTO, October 29, 2002 -- Physicists working in Europe, including Canada Research Chair in Atomic Physics at York University, Prof. Eric Hessels, have succeeded in capturing the first glimpse of the structure of antimatter, in the start of experiments that could unlock more of the mysteries of the birth of the universe. The findings will be published in the upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.
Fast on the heels of the successful production of cold antimatter reported last month by the ATHENA group at Europe’s biggest particle physics laboratory at CERN, in Geneva, the ATRAP group of scientists at CERN have managed to examine the internal states of antihydrogen atoms.
"We have been able to make a determination of the atomic states of antihydrogen atoms produced, by passing them through an electrical field before they hit the wall of the apparatus and disappear," said Hessels, who is part of the ATRAP collaboration based at Harvard University in Boston. York graduate student Daniel Comeau and York alumnus Dr. Cody Storry, now a research associate at Harvard, also worked on the project. ATRAP, led by Harvard Prof. Gerald Gabrielse, pioneered many of the techniques used by ATHENA to produce cold antihydrogen atoms.
Experiments with antimatter could test some of the basic tenets of modern physics, shedding light on the symmetries of nature which predict that matter and antimatter will have similar properties. They could help explain why the world is made of matter rather than antimatter. Scientists have long puzzled over why the world is not also made of antimatter, which only occurs naturally in cosmic ray collisions. They believe the Big Bang should have created the same amount of matter as antimatter, and in theory, the two should have wiped each other out, as matter and antimatter explode on impact and disappear. The explosion generated by the collision of an antiparticle and a particle is the most powerful energy source known, but scientists are still far from being able to harness that energy.
They will now be looking closely at antihydrogen properties to determine if there is a difference between matter and antimatter, but they must be able to contain the antimatter long enough to perform experiments. It is the goal of ATRAP to capture antihydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap where they can be suspended indefinitely and studied precisely. For further information on the ATRAP findings visit the CERN Web site press release at: http://info.web.cern.ch/info/Press/PressReleases/Releases2002/PR13.02EATRAP.html.
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For further information, please contact:
| Prof. Eric Hessels | Susan Bigelow |
| Dept. of Physics | Media Relations |
| York University | York University |
| 416-736-2100, ext. 33040 | 416-736-2100, ext. 22091 |
| hessels@yorku.ca | sbigelow@yorku.ca |
YU/098/02
