Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Project

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 significant progress. In November 2010, ALPHA announced the first stable trapping of antihydrogen atoms. Soon after, ALPHA reported the confinement of cold antihydrogen for as long as 1000 seconds, extending the initial trapping times by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. ALPHA-Canada now constitutes one third of the collaboration and 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 upgrading to a new trapping/cooing apparatus that will allow access of laser light to the trapped antiHydrogen. These steps will permit high precision (optical) spectroscopy and accordingly more stringent symmetry tests. This Discovery grant is a bridging grant to enable four new Canadian researchers with unique areas of expertise in laser high precision spectroscopy and laser cooling (a skill set hitherto under-represented in the ALPHA collaboration) to join the effort. This next phase of work will help make possible the ambitious goal of performing precision symmetry tests between matter and antimatter with unprecedented low levels of uncertainty.