ALPHA-g is an apparatus built by the ALPHA collaboration - an international project that works with antihydrogen atoms to study the properties of antimatter and how it compares to ordinary matter.
But what is antimatter?
Antimatter is essentially the same as ordinary matter but with an opposite electric charge.
A normal hydrogen atom has a positively charged proton with a negatively charged electron orbiting it.
Whereas antihydrogen (that makes up the A in ALPHA) has the opposite: a negatively charged antiproton with a positive positron surrounding it.
Trapping these antihydrogen atoms (which is no easy feat) is what allows scientists to examine the nature of antimatter.
Returning to 2018, our Cryogenics and Magnetics team were responsible for designing, winding and testing beamline magnets for ALPHA-g, while our workshop manufactured components for the experiment’s ion source.
This work supported the development of ALPHA-g which, more recently in September of 2023, has shown that antimatter responds to gravity in the same way as other matter!
To learn more about this achievement and the collaboration's plans for the future, check out STFC's blog post.
And, for a more in-depth look at ALPHA-g, read the papers below:
- Anderson, E.K., Baker, C.J., Bertsche, W. et al. Observation of the effect of gravity on the motion of antimatter. Nature 621, 716–722 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06527-1
- Baker, C. J, Bertsche, W., Capra, A. et al. Design and performance of a novel low energy multispecies beamline for an antihydrogen experiment. Physical review. Accelerators and beams, 26(4) (2023). https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevaccelbeams.26.040101.
