In a first, CERN Scientists carry out LASER cooling of Positronium

Posted 24 Feb 2024

2 min read

An international team of physicists from Anti-hydrogen Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy (AEgIS) collaboration has achieved this breakthrough.
- AEgIS is one of several experiments at CERN’s Antimatter Factory with goal of direct measurement of Earth's gravitational acceleration (g) on antihydrogen.
- AEgIS is a collaboration of physicists from a number of countries in Europe and from India.
Positronium (Ps), discovered in 1951, is the lightest known atom, consisting only of an electron (e⁻) and a positron (e⁺).
- Ps has a very short lifetime, annihilating into gamma rays in 142 billionths of a second.
- Because it comprises just two point-like particles, the electron and its antimatter, it’s a perfect system for experiments under AEgIS, provided it can be cooled enough to measure it with high precision.

Matter – Antimatter
- Matter comes in many forms—solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas - consisting of subatomic particles that give them mass and volume.
  - Sub-atomic particles include protons and neutrons (also known as baryons), electrons and neutrinos (also known as leptons), and other particles.
- All subatomic particles either have their own anti-twins (antiquarks, antiprotons, antineutrons, and antileptons such as antielectrons) or straddle between matter and antimatter.
  - Anti-particles can combine to form anti-atoms and, in principle, could even form anti-matter regions.

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