Creating Anti-matter

Since 1995 Cern has been creating anti-matter, specifically anti-hydrogen, for fleeting nano seconds.  More recently they have been able to contain them for several minutes.  It becomes more and more difficult to contain the more that is produced due to interaction between the anti-atom causing them to veer out of containment and  being neutralized by matter.

http://alpha-new.web.cern.ch/home

The first beam of the 2011 season was delivered to ALPHA from the AD (Antiproton Decelerator) on the night of May 9th.

The image here shows some of the first antiprotons captured in the trap. It's produced by dumping the particles onto an MCP/phosphor -- the bright circular shape is the electron plasma used to cool the antiprotons from a few keV (kiloelectron volts = 1000 electron volts) to a few eV. The more diffuse cloud off to an angle on the left is the antiproton cloud. There are about 30,000 antiprotons here, which is what we get from one shot (cycle) of the AD.

Here's to another great run!