Antihydrogen for fundamental physics

What is it about?

Antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of the hydrogen atom, is now routinely made and trapped in the laboratory (at CERN). Studies of antihydrogen promise to provide new insights into some of the most profound mysteries in physics today, such as why there is no antimatter in the Universe and why we cannot quantize gravity (gravity remains incompatible with quantum mechanics that gave us the technological revolution). I describe the many techniques that has led us to the first simple studies.

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Why is it important?

This article covers all the essential techniques that were necessary for ALPHA to succeed in the first trapping of antihydrogen in 2010. Since then ALPHA has used these techniques to go from strength to strength and now routinely traps about 2 antihydrogen atoms per experimental cycle. The antihydrogen can be help for more than 15 minutes, which has allowed the first ever resonant quantum transitions in an antiatom to be observed.