AEgIS collaboration meeting takes place in Warsaw
An AEgIS collaboration meeting has taken place in Warsaw, Poland from 9-11 May 2023 to review the current status and consider the future outlook of the AEgIS project. Many people attended the meeting in person and some others attended online. There were over 30 participants in total.
The meeting commenced with a comprehensive overview of the physics program and current analyses being conducted within the project. Talks followed on the detailed experimental set up including the apparatus, vacuum and cryogenics, the positron system and the EKSPLA laser system. There followed a session on the control system status and upgrades.
Later on the first day there was a session looking at working toward a Rydberg antihydrogen source including talks on plasma manipulations and an overview on Ps excitation to Rydberg states in a 1T field and ionization diagnostics. This talk proposed new ionization diagnostic methods. To check the impact on the positron beam, a unipolar and bipolar electrode configuration were proposed.
The second day started with a session on Gravity with Rydberg antihydrogen. Interferometry and deflectrometry were both discussed as was material gratings and a tentative design of the gravity module was presented.
The next session was on antiproton atoms physics. Experiments with anti-protonic atoms at LEAR were described before an update on the beamline was provided. The STARSHIP chamber has been successfully integrated with the beamline, and the electrodes have undergone Hi-pot tests under vacuum conditions, achieving the required vacuum levels. Pulsed production of negative ions were also discussed.
The final day started with a session on positronium physics. A status report on Ps laser cooling was given, further information on the gravity module was presented and near future physics with Ps was discussed.
The AEgIS experimental set up.
The final session looked to the future with a discussion on a recently proposed theory: Can gravity induce mechanical resonances? This was followed by talks on the ongoing development of a room temperature antiproton trap and the ideas of BOREALIS setup which uses the sympathetic cooling of antiprotons to mK temperatures using C2 anions.
At the end of the meeting, a session was presented about outreach including the new logo and website design and then finally a planning session for the AEgIS experiments took place.
The full program for this workshop is on Indico and all presentations can be found here