Centrifugal separation and equilibration dynamics in an electron-antiproton plasma

Abstract

Charges in cold, multiple-species, non-neutral plasmas separate radially by mass, forming centrifugally-separated states. Here, we report the first detailed measurements of such states in an electron-antiproton plasma, and the first observations of the separation dynamics in any centrifugally-separated system. While the observed equilibrium states are expected and in agreement with theory, the equilibration time is approximately constant over a wide range of parameters, a surprising and as yet unexplained result. Electron-antiproton plasmas play a crucial role in antihydrogen trapping experiments.

References in corpus (2)

• Evaporative Cooling of Antiprotons to Cryogenic Temperatures
• Compression of Antiproton Clouds for Antihydrogen Trapping

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Heat Pump via Charge Incompressibility in a Collisional Magnetized Multi-Ion Plasma
• Plasma Temperature Measurement with a Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM)
• Synthesis of cold and trappable fully stripped HCI's via antiproton-induced nuclear fragmentation in traps
• Using stochastic acceleration to place experimental limits on the charge of antihydrogen