Patrick Donnan awarded 2013 SPS Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research
donnan-patrick-osaur
About the Recipient
Zone and Chapter: Auburn University
Project
Project Name: Laser Cooling Antihydrogen Atoms
Project Abstract: We present a scheme for laser cooling applicable to an extremely dilute sample of magnetically trapped antihydrogen atoms (Hbar). Exploiting and controlling the dynamical coupling between the Hbar’s motional degrees of freedom in a magnetic trap, three-dimensional cooling can be achieved from Doppler cooling in one dimension using the 1s1/2 − 2p3/2 transition. The lack of three-dimensional access to the trapped Hbar and the nearly separable nature of the trapping potential leads to difficulties in cooling. Using realistic models for the spatial variation of the magnetic fields, we find that it should be possible to cool the Hbar’s to ∼20 mK even with these constraints.