Amole C, Ashkezari M D, Baquero-Ruiz M, Bertsche W, Butler E, Capra A, Cesar C L, Charlton M, Eriksson S, Fajans J, Friesen T, Fujiwara M C, Gill D R, Gutierrez A, Hangst J S, Hardy W N, Hayden M E, Isaac C A, Jonsell S, Kurchaninov L, Little A, Madsen N, McKenna J T K, Menary S, Napoli S C, Nolan P, Olchanski K, Olin A, Povilus A, Pusa P, Rasmussen C Ø, Robicheaux F, Sarid E, Silveira D M, So C, Tharp T D, Thompson R I, van der Werf D P, Vendeiro Z, Wurtele J S, Zhmoginov A I, Charman A E
Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3.
Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6.
Nat Commun. 2014 Jun 3;5:3955. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4955.
The properties of antihydrogen are expected to be identical to those of hydrogen, and any differences would constitute a profound challenge to the fundamental theories of physics. The most commonly discussed antiatom-based tests of these theories are searches for antihydrogen-hydrogen spectral differences (tests of CPT (charge-parity-time) invariance) or gravitational differences (tests of the weak equivalence principle). Here we, the ALPHA Collaboration, report a different and somewhat unusual test of CPT and of quantum anomaly cancellation. A retrospective analysis of the influence of electric fields on antihydrogen atoms released from the ALPHA trap finds a mean axial deflection of 4.1 ± 3.4 mm for an average axial electric field of 0.51 V mm(-1). Combined with extensive numerical modelling, this measurement leads to a bound on the charge Qe of antihydrogen of Q=(-1.3 ± 1.1 ± 0.4) × 10(-8). Here, e is the unit charge, and the errors are from statistics and systematic effects.
反氢的性质预计与氢相同，任何差异都将对物理学的基本理论构成严峻挑战。这些理论中最常讨论的基于反原子的测试是寻找反氢与氢的光谱差异（CPT（电荷-宇称-时间）不变性测试）或引力差异（弱等效原理测试）。在此，我们阿尔法合作团队报告了一项关于CPT和量子反常消除的不同寻常的测试。对从阿尔法陷阱释放的反氢原子所受电场影响的回顾性分析发现，对于平均轴向电场为0.51 V mm⁻¹，平均轴向偏转量为4.1 ± 3.4 mm。结合广泛的数值模拟，这一测量结果给出了反氢电荷Qₑ的上限为Q = (-1.3 ± 1.1 ± 0.4) × 10⁻⁸。这里，e是单位电荷，误差来自统计和系统效应。
