The PS210 experiment was the first experiment that led to the observation of
antihydrogen
Antihydrogen () is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Whereas the common hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton. Scientists hope that studying antihydrogen may shed l ...
atoms
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, an ...
produced at the
Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR) at
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
in 1995.
The antihydrogen atoms were produced in flight and moved at nearly the speed of light. They made unique electrical signals in detectors that destroyed them almost immediately after they formed by matter–
antimatter annihilation.
Eleven signals were observed, of which two were attributed to other processes.
In 1997 similar observations were announced at
Fermilab from the
E862 experiment.
The first measurement demonstrated the existence of antihydrogen,
the second (with improved setup and intensity monitoring) measured the production rate.
Both experiments, one at each of the only two facilities with suitable
antiprotons, were stimulated by calculations which suggested the possibility of making very fast
antihydrogen
Antihydrogen () is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Whereas the common hydrogen atom is composed of an electron and proton, the antihydrogen atom is made up of a positron and antiproton. Scientists hope that studying antihydrogen may shed l ...
within existing circular
accelerators
Accelerator may refer to:
In science and technology
In computing
*Download accelerator, or download manager, software dedicated to downloading
*Hardware acceleration, the use of dedicated hardware to perform functions faster than a CPU
** Gr ...
.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
Particle experiments
CERN experiments
External Links
PS210 experimentrecord on
INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...
{{particle-stub