Physics with thermal antiprotons

The same beam cooling techniques that have allowed for high luminosity antiproton experiments at high energy also provide the opportunity for experiments at ultra-low energy. Through a series of deceleration stages, antiprotons collected and cooled at the peak momentum for production can be made available at thermal or sub-thermal energies. In particular, the CERN, PS-200 collaboration is developing an RFQ-pulsed ion trap beam line for the antiproton gravitational mass experiment at LEAR that will provide beams of antiprotons in the energy range 0.001-1000.0 eV. Antiprotons at these energies make these fundamental particles available for experiments in condensed matter and atomic physics. The recent speculation that antiprotons may form metastable states in some forms of normal matter could open many new avenues of basic and applied research