The ALPHA collaboration consists of scientists from a number scientific institutions whose goal it is to trap neutral antimatter in the form of antihydrogen in a magnetic trap and consecutively conduct experiments with the trapped antiatoms. The ultimate goal of this endeavour is to test the CPT theorem. The ALPHA collaboration consists of some former members of the ATHENA collaboration who was the first to produce large amounts of cold antihydrogen in 2002 as well as a number of new members. In particle physics, antimatter extends the concept of the antiparticle to matter, wherein if a particle and its antiparticle come into contact with each other, the two annihilate —that is, they may both be converted into other particles with equal energy in accordance with Einsteins equation E = mc2. ... Antihydrogen is the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. ... CPT-symmetry is a fundamental symmetry of physical laws under transformations that involve the inversions of charge, parity and time simultaneously. ... Helmeted Athena, of the Velletri type. ...

The challenges of these goals are many. Magnetic traps where the neutral atoms are trapped on their magnetic moment are notoriously weak; only atoms with kinetic energies equivalent to less than a kelvin may be trapped. The cold antihydrogen created first in 2002 by the ATHENA and the ATRAP collaborations was created by merging cold plasmas of positrons (antielectrons) and antiprotons. This method was very successful but seems to create antiatoms with too large kinetic energy to be trapped. Furthermore, to do laser spectroscopy on these antiatoms it is important that they are in their ground state, something which does not seem to be the case for the majority of the antiatoms created thus far. In physics, the magnetic moment or magnetic dipole moment is a measure of the strength of a magnetic source. ... The Kelvin scale is a thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale where absolute zero—the lowest possible temperature where nothing could be colder and no heat energy remains in a substance—is defined as zero kelvin (0 K). ... The ATRAP collaboration at CERN developed out of TRAP, a collaboration whose members pioneered cold antiprotons, cold positrons, and first made the ingredients of cold antihydrogen to interact. ... A positron is the antiparticle of the electron. ... The antiproton (aka pbar) is the antiparticle of the proton. ... Extremely high resolution spectrum of the Sun showing thousands of elemental absorption lines (fraunhofer lines) Spectroscopy is the study of matter by investigating light, sound, or particles that are emitted, absorbed or scattered by the matter under investigation. ... In physics, the ground state of a quantum mechanical system is its lowest-energy state. ...

The official page of the ALPHA collaboration ALPHA collaboration

ALPHA is an acronym for Antimatter Laser Physics Apparatus.

See also