An atomic hydrogen beam to test ASACUSA's apparatus for antihydrogen spectroscopy

The ASACUSA collaboration aims to measure the ground state hyperfine splitting (GS-HFS) of antihydrogen, the antimatter pendant to atomic hydrogen. Comparisons of the corresponding transitions in those two systems will provide sensitive tests of the CPT symmetry, the combination of the three discrete symmetries charge conjugation, parity, and time reversal. For offline tests of the GS-HFS spectroscopy apparatus we constructed a source of cold polarised atomic hydrogen. In these proceedings we report the successful observation of the hyperfine structure transitions of atomic hydrogen with our apparatus in the earth's magnetic field.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, proceedings for conference EXA 2014 (Exotic Atoms - Vienna

Microwave spectroscopic study of the hyperfine structure of antiprotonic helium-3

In this work we describe the latest results for the measurements of the hyperfine structure of antiprotonic helium-3. Two out of four measurable super-super-hyperfine SSHF transition lines of the (n,L)=(36,34) state of antiprotonic helium-3 were observed. The measured frequencies of the individual transitions are 11.12548(08) GHz and 11.15793(13) GHz, with an increased precision of about 43% and 25% respectively compared to our first measurements with antiprotonic helium-3 [S. Friedreich et al., Phys. Lett. B 700 (2011) 1--6]. They are less than 0.5 MHz higher with respect to the most recent theoretical values, still within their estimated errors. Although the experimental uncertainty for the difference of 0.03245(15) GHz between these frequencies is large as compared to that of theory, its measured value also agrees with theoretical calculations. The rates for collisions between antiprotonic helium and helium atoms have been assessed through comparison with simulations, resulting in an elastic collision rate of gamma_e = 3.41 +- 0.62 MHz and an inelastic collision rate of gamma_i = 0.51 +- 0.07 MHz.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1102.528

Annihilation detector for an in-beam spectroscopy apparatus to measure the ground state hyperfine splitting of antihydrogen

The matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in the universe today still lacks a quantitative explanation. One possible mechanism that could contribute to the observed imbalance is a violation of the combined Charge-, Parity- and Time symmetries (CPT). A test of CPT symmetry using anti-atoms is being carried out by the ASACUSA-CUSP collaboration at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator using a low temperature beam of antihydrogen—the most simple atomic system built only of antiparticles. While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, antihydrogen is produced in very small quantities in a laboratory framework. A detector for in-beam measurements of the ground state hyperfine structure of antihydrogen has to be able to detect very low signal rates within high background. To fulfil this challenging task, a two layer barrel hodoscope detector was developed. It is built of plastic scintillators with double sided readout via Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs). The SiPM readout is done using novel, compact and cost efficient electronics that incorporate power supply, amplifier and discriminator on a single board. This contribution will evaluate the performance of the new hodoscope detector