The AEgIS experiment

The AEgIS experiment is presently almost completely installed at CERN. It is currently taking data with antiprotons, electrons and positrons. The apparatus is designed to form a cold, pulsed beam of antihydrogen to measure the Earth’s gravitational acceleration g on antimatter and to perform spectroscopy measurements. This paper describes the main features of the apparatus and shows a selected review of some achieved results.

Experiments with low-energy antimatter

Investigations on antimatter allow us to shed light on fundamental issues of contemporary physics. The only antiatom presently available, antihydrogen, is produced making use of the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) facility at CERN. International collaborations currently on the floor (ALPHA, ASACUSA and ATRAP) have succeeded in producing antihydrogen and are now involved in its confinement and manipulation. The AEGIS experiment is currently completing the commissioning of the apparatus which will generate and manipulate antiatoms. The present paper, after a report on the main results achieved with antihydrogen physics, gives an overview of the AEGIS experiment, describes its current status and discusses its first target.