In a world first, a team of scientists from the BASE experiment BASE experiment at CERN, led by Stefan Ulmer of the Fundamental Symmetries Laboratory successfully transported a trap filled with antiprotons in a truck across CERN’s main site on the border of France and Switzerland. The team managed to accumulate a cloud of antiprotons in an innovative portable cryogenic Penning trap, then disconnect it from the experimental facility, load it onto a truck and continue experiment operation after transport. The ultimate aim is to transport antiprotons from CERN’s “antimatter factory”—the only place in the world where antiprotons can be produced, stored, and studied, to other European laboratories, for example Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, where very high precision measurements of the antiproton properties could be performed.
“Our aim with BASE-STEP, the BASE experiment for transporting antiprotons, is to be able to trap antiprotons and deliver them to our precision laboratories at a dedicated space at CERN, Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, Leibnitz University Hannover, and maybe other laboratories, capable of performing very high-precision antiproton measurements, which exceeds the resolution achievable inside the antimatter factory”, explains Christian Smorra, the leader of BASE-STEP.
For a more detailed explanation, see the press release on CERN’s website.
Truck transporting a cloud of antiprotons