DPNC seminars

Studying nuclei with antimatter at CERN: the PUMA experiment and future plans

by Prof. Alexandre Orbetelli (TU Darmstadt – IKP, Germany)

Europe/Zurich
Stückelberg auditorium (Ecole de physique)

Stückelberg auditorium

Ecole de physique

Description

The antiProton Unstable Matter Annihilation (PUMA) experiment aims at investigating the neutron skin of stable and radioactive nuclei by use of antiproton-nucleus annihilation. The experiment, approved in 2021, will collect antiprotons from the ELENA storage ring at CERN’s Antimatter Factory before transporting them in a compact particle trap to the ISOLDE radioactive ion beam facility, located a few hundred meters away. At ISOLDE, the particle trap will be connected to the low-energy radioactive ion beamline to receive short-lived rare nuclei. The annihilation between matter and antimatter will occur inside the particle trap, which is surrounded by particle detectors to detect and reconstruct annihilation events. 

In this seminar, the concept an current status of PUMA will be presented. Future perspectives to produce hypernuclei from low-energy antiproton annihilation at the CERN’s Antimatter Factory and to investigate their structure  will be introduced.