Published January 16, 2024 | Version v1
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Measurements of Penning-Malmberg trap patch potentials and associated performance degradation

  • 1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
  • 2. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom
  • 3. Cockcroft Institute, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Warrington WA4 4AD, United Kingdom
  • 4. TRIUMF, 4004 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver BC, V6T 2A3, Canada
  • 5. Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-972, Brazil
  • 6. Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA
  • 7. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada

Description

Antiprotons created by laser ionization of antihydrogen are observed to rapidly escape the ALPHA trap. Further, positron plasmas heat more quickly after the trap is illuminated by laser light for several hours. These phenomena can be caused by patch potentials—variations in the electrical potential along metal surfaces. A simple model of the effects of patch potentials explains the particle loss, and an experimental technique using trapped electrons is developed for measuring the electric field produced by the patch potentials. The model is validated by controlled experiments and simulations.

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10.1103_PhysRevResearch.6.L012008.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L012008;
Crossref Funder ID
10.13039/501100003593; 10.13039/501100004586; 10.13039/501100000038; 10.13039/100012419; 10.13039/501100003150; 10.13039/100020038; 10.13039/501100003977; 10.13039/501100000271; 10.13039/501100000266; 10.13039/100000015; 10.13039/100000001;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review Research
Journal Volume
6
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
8 pgs.
ISSN
2643-1564