Jeffrey S. Hangst
Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Aarhus, Denmark
The Production of Cold Antihydrogen


Antihydrogen is the antimatter equivalent of the hydrogen atom. It is of fundamental interest for, among other things, tests of CPT symmetry and measurements of gravitational effects on antimatter. In 2002 the ATHENA experiment succeeded both in synthesizing cold antihydrogen atoms from trapped plasmas of positrons and antiprotons, and in detecting the annihilation of the anti-atoms when they escaped the apparatus. In this colloquium I will describe the ATHENA experiment and the developments that resulted in this success. I will also discuss subsequent experiments aimed at understanding the physics of antihydrogen production, and the future of antihydrogen physics will be addressed. If time permits I will share some anecdotes about the media frenzy which resulted from ATHENA's announcement of the first production of cold anti-atoms.

ref: M. Amoretti et al., Nature 419, 456 (2002)