LASER COOLING OF POSITRONIUM

1. The AEgIS (Anti-hydrogen Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) collaboration operating at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, more popularly known as CERN, in Geneva has achieved an unprecedented milestone.
2. This milestone is the demonstration of laser cooling of positronium, which is a significant advance in antimatter research.

Key Highlights:

1. AEgIS, which involves physicists from Europe and India, aims to study anti-hydrogen atoms and measure Earth's gravitational acceleration on anti-hydrogen.
2. Positronium (Ps), discovered in 1951, is the lightest known atom, consisting only of an electron (e−) and a positron (e+). Positronium is an unstable atom made up of an electron and its anti-particle, a positron, that are bound together.

3. In modern physics, matter is made up of atoms and has 2 fundamental properties: mass and volume. Antimatter is matter with the same mass as matter, but with opposite charges, parity, and time.
4. Laser cooling, a method based on particles absorbing and emitting photons, was chosen to slow down the highly unstable positronium particles for more precise measurements.

Laser Cooling Method:

1. Laser cooling involves particles absorbing photons and emitting them in random directions, thus slowing down their momentum.
2. Experimentalists successfully cooled Positronium atoms from ~380 Kelvin to ~170 Kelvin using an alexandrite-based laser system.

Conclusion:

The success of the AEgIS experiment in laser cooling positronium represents a significant leap forward in antimatter research, offering possibilities for future discoveries and applications.

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