“In the recent paper, we got it to 12 decimal places. CERN scientists are getting ready to transport antimatter to a new location, using the strange substance in a new experiment. “It’s measured to 15 decimal places.” Being able to compare this measurement to the equivalent in antihydrogen, he continued, would be the “holy grail” of the field. “This particular measurement in hydrogen is the most precisely measured quantity in physics,” ALPHA collaborator Scott Menary, professor of physics at York University in Toronto, told me over the phone. The experiment used the caesium fountain clock one of the most precise clocks in the world, used to define SI units and help set coordinated universal time (UTC) to precisely measure the second using caesium. CERN1s unique new antimatter factory, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) has begun delivering antiprotons to experiments. This time, scientists could measure the spectral shape, or spread in colours, of antihydrogen from its lowest-energy state to its first excited state (what’s called the 1S to 2S transition). Now, this may become a reality, thanks to new measurements on the second from the BETA experiment at CERN’s Antimatter Factory. Read More: Astronomers Can’t Explain Why This New Galaxy Has Hardly Any Dark Matter What’s different now is the level of precision-a factor of 100 times improved, according to CERN. In 2016, the ALPHA team did a similar experiment using the same technique to take a spectroscopic measurement of antihydrogen. 2017 The BASE experiment at CERN’s Antimatter Factory measures the antiproton’s magnetic moment to an accuracy of 1.5 parts per billion, better than the equivalent proton measurement. Then scientists can beam a laser at it to perform their measurements. So the next step involves securing antihydrogen inside a magnetic trap. Antihydrogen is tricky to work with, since it’s at risk of annihilating with matter. To obtain antihydrogen, ALPHA scientists used the Antiproton Decelerator to make antiprotons, which they bound up with positrons.
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