Welcome to the Antimatter Spectroscopy group embedded in the Laser Spectroscopy Division of Prof. T.W. Haensch, Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany. This junior research group led by M. Hori is funded by the European Science Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Our group carries out precise laser and microwave spectroscopy of atoms containing antimatter, and develops new techniques to manipulate antimatter particles. According to the CPT theorem of particle physics, the “antiworld” – constructed by replacing all the matter particles in the universe with antimatter, inverting their spatial configuration, and reversing the flow of time - would be indistinguishable from our real matter world. One cornerstone of this symmetry is that atoms made of antimatter, i.e. “antiatoms”, are expected to resonate at exactly the same characteristic optical and microwave frequencies as their matter counterparts; particles and their antiparticles are assumed to have exactly the same mass, and equal and opposite electric charge and magnetic moment. Any deviation, however small, would indicate that this fundamental symmetry of nature is broken. This project will synthesize various kinds of atoms containing antimatter and measure their atomic frequencies. New techniques to manipulate antiparticles will be developed to make these experiments possible. The first half of the project will attempt the first sub-Doppler two-photon laser spectroscopy of antiprotonic helium atoms. These experiments would yield a comparison between the antiproton and proton masses and charges at a precision of 9-10 digits, and a measurement of the antiproton-to-electron mass ratio, which could be more precise than the known proton-to-electron one. The second and most challenging half of the project will develop a superconducting radiofrequency Paul trap, which will be used to store antiprotons and positrons, and produce antihydrogen atoms in a zero magnetic field.

Our group at MPQ in Garching develops high-precision lasers, high-energy particle detectors, and data acquisition systems, and then we move these instruments to the Antiproton Decelerator of CERN to carry out experiments using antimatter atoms. Some of the instruments we developed over the years is shown below.

 

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