Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Research Tools and Instruments

ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) is an international project at CERN whose goal is to perform fundamental symmetry tests on trapped antihydrogen, the simplest atomic form of neutral antimatter. Since its approval by CERN in 2005, ALPHA has made very substantial progress. In November 2010, ALPHA announced the first stable trapping of antihydrogen atoms. Very recently, ALPHA reported the confinement of antihydrogen for as long as 1000 seconds, extending the initial trapping times by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. ALPHA-Canada, which constitutes one third of the collaboration, plays a leading role in many aspects of the project. ALPHA-Canada is responsible for virtually all of the detector software and analysis, including that for the most recent results establishing antihydrogen trapping. In addition, microwave spectroscopy of antihydrogen hyperfine levels, which will be ALPHA's first attempt of antihydrogen spectroscopy, is an entirely Canadian-led initiative. ALPHA is currently designing a major upgrade. The new apparatus will allow access of laser light for precision spectroscopy. This RTI grant will provide critical equipment to support an extension of ALPHA-Canada activities to enable this very exciting possibility of laser spectroscopy and laser cooling of antihydrogen. The proposed equipment is necessary to make these experiments possible, and the goals include pulsed laser spectroscopy, precision metrology and laser development for antihydrogen laser cooling, areas in which ALPHA-Canada has unique expertise. This next phase of work will help make possible the ambitious goal of performing precision symmetry tests between matter and antimatter.