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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AVA (Accelerators Validating Antimatter physics)

Teaser

Summary

Antiprotons, stored and cooled at low energies in a storage ring or at rest in traps, are highly desirable for the investigation of basic questions on fundamental interactions, the static structure of antiprotonic atoms, CPT tests by high-resolution spectroscopy on antihydrogen, as well as gravity experiments. Antimatter experiments are at the cutting edge of science. They are, however, very difficult to realize and have been limited by the performance of the only existing facility in the world, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) at CERN.
The project Accelerators Validating Antimatter physics (AVA) enables an interdisciplinary and cross-sector R&D program on antimatter research at the AD and the future FLAIR facility in Germany. Within AVA, the project partners carry out research across 3 scientific work packages. These cover facility design and optimization, advanced beam diagnostics and novel low energy antimatter experiments.
The first year of the AVA project was focused on ESR recruitment. A total of 15 Fellows have been recruited and the gender balance achieved is 30 % of females. A structured combination of local and network-wide trainings has been offered to them and they are also actively involved in outreach and dissemination.
All research projects are well underway and already producing initial results. They are on or ahead of the original deadlines. All project deliverables have been achieved in the reporting period and the respective reports have been submitted via the participant portal.

Work performed

To fully exploit the potential of the ELENA and USR research infrastructures, the AVA partners carry out a closely connected R&D program across three scientific work packages. This includes:
Facility Design and Optimization,
addressing beam life time and stability in lowest energy rings, as well as beam cooling, deceleration and extraction through simulation and experiment, as well as innovative control systems. Significant progress was made since the start of the AVA project in the understanding of beam motion at keV energies. This includes enhancements to existing simulation codes, as well as experimental studies at the ELENA and LEIR rings at CERN. These studies were carried out close collaboration between several AVA Fellows and have helped model the anticipated performance of the electron cooler better and thus paved the way for enhanced beam delivery to all experiments at the AD/ELENA in the future.

Beam Diagnostics,
to monitor the properties of a low energy antiproton beam with higher precision and help verify simulation models experimentally. Since the start of the project new experimental setups have been realised (ULIV) and prototype detectors were developed and tested (FZJ, GSI, STAHL). These have already shown superior performance as compared to existing technologies and are expected to mark the state-of-the-art in the future.

Antimatter Experiments,
including studies into the collision dynamics of correlated quantum systems, experiments into the effects of gravity on antimatter, as well as spectroscopic measurements that give an insight into the structure of antiparticles. AVA R&D has addressed a wide range of experimental studies and led to the development of new and sophisticated simulation tools that allow simulating realistic beam transport at lowest energies through beam lines and in traps (ULIV). This work was complemented by R&D into novel sensors that can measure the 3D electric field distribution and that have successfully been tested in 2018; publication of the results is planned for early 2019. Preparations and experimental runs for trap experiments were also done at GSI, MPIK and CERN. It is expected that the improvement made within AVA will in the near future help push the resolution limits of several high precision experiments and enable major scientific breakthrough.

In addition to local training provided by the respective host, the network-wide training plan was successfully implemented. Trainings have included so far a week-long researcher skills school, a media training week leading to a highly successful film about the AVA project (https://youtu.be/AXu06zZhgoo), an international School on Antimatter Physics, and a Topical Workshop on Instrumentation and Detectors which was organised well ahead of the original schedule due to R&D progress made by the Fellows.

The Fellows have had a strong involvement in dissemination and communication activities in AVA (eg. The project website, The project\'s MIRROR newsletter, A project leaflet and brochure, The film AVA â€“ Nature (anti)matters The AVA promotional material was used successfully to raise the profile of the project by distribution at international conferences and via the partners.
These activities go far beyond the original plan and have reached Millions of people. This has ensured international communication of the AVA project aims and research results. Particular highlights were the Marie Curie Day 2017 (reach: 500,000), Physics of Star Wars (reach: 1,000,000), public talk at CERN (fully booked, available only in two languages) and the AVA film with almost 100,000 views, making it the most viewed film on the EC\'s YouTube playlist. The project start was also internationally communicated, with news articles in The Times and many other high level publications.

Final results

Whilst R&D is still in the initial phase, some remarkable results have already been achieved in the AVA project and include:
- AVA Fellow Markus Wiesinger, who works at Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, was part of the team that invented novel ion multi-trap method enabling the Measurement of Ultralow Heating Rates of a Single Antiproton in a Cryogenic Penning Trap. This important achievement for the wider low energy antimatter and ion community was described in detail in an article published in 2019 in Physical Review Letters;
- Results from beam tracking studies, achieved through the collaboration by several AVA Fellows, were presented the international particle accelerator conference, the world\'s largest accelerator conference;
- Antiproton tagging and vertex fitting in the Timepix3 detector, paving the way for new experimental studies; this was achieved in the AEgIS experiment at CERN and published in the Journal of Instrumentation;
- AEgIS also studied the compression of a mixed antiproton and electron non-neutral plasma to high densities which shows good prospects for future high(er) precision experiments. This was published in Eur. Phys. J. D in 2018.

The detector R&D programme carried out across AVA shows great promise to push the limits in low energy beam detection and characterization. The aim of the project is to make advances that go significantly beyond the state of the art and this is carefully monitored with regards to IP and technology transfer. It is expected that the R&D in the Antimatter Experiments work package will lead to future high impact factor journal articles as the studies directly address some of the most fundamental physics challenges.

Outreach and communication activities will be further expanded and AVA has the declared goal to communicate the research challenges to a very wide and international audience. In 2019, this shall be achieved via a pan-European outreach symposium on 28 June and a second edition of the highly successul Physics of Star Wars event.