A Positron Electron eXperiment (APEX): Recent highlights and coming attractions

POSTER

Abstract

The APEX Collaboration aims to create and study confined, low-temperature, long-lived, e+e- “pair plasmas” in the laboratory. Our motivation is to conduct novel tests of basic plasma science predictions (e.g., involving transport and regime-crossing) in this unusually mass-symmetric, strongly magnetized regime (with potential insights into related cosmological/astrophysical systems). Toward these ends, we work at the intersection of several fields, including magnetic confinement, non-neutral plasmas, high-temperature-superconducting (HTS) coils, and antimatter science.

This poster will provide an overview of recent highlights from our collaboration. These have included studies of pure e- plasmas in APEX-LD (our compact levitated dipole trap), optimization and engineering design reviews for EPOS (our tabletop-sized, optimized stellarator); gamma-detector-array-based measurements of e+ transport and cooling in our supported dipole trap; e- plasma manipulations in our linear, “multi-cell” trap; and accompanying numerical/theoretical modeling. The poster will also look forward to plans for next year, when the FRM-II research neutron source is now scheduled to return to user operation. In preparation for this, we will install our Surko trap (a.k.a. buffer-gas trap, or BGT) and APEX-LD on the NEPOMUC e+ beam there; this will allow us to combine significant numbers of positrons and electrons (N > 10^8) and take first measurements of the resulting interacting ensembles.

*The APEX Collaboration gratefully acknowledges support from the Helmholtz Association; the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR); the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG); the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the UC San Diego Foundation; the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) RISE program; the United States Department of Energy; the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); and the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS).

Publication: As this is an overview poster, it touches on topics from a variety of recently published and in-progress papers.

Presenters

  • Eve Virginia Stenson

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

Authors

  • Eve Virginia Stenson

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • V. C Bayer

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • E. Buglione-Ceresa

    • Technische Universität München

  • Alex Card

    • Technische Universität München

  • J. R Danielson

    • UC San Diego

  • Adam Deller

    • Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics
    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Pedro F Gil

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • C. Hugenschmidt

    • TUM

  • Paul Huslage

    • Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics
    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Jens von der Linden

    • Thea Energy

  • Stefan Nissl

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Elizabeth von Schoenberg

    • Concordia University

  • Tristan Schuler

    • SchulerTEC

  • Lutz Schweikhard

    • University of Greifswald

  • Martin Singer

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Jason Smoniewski

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Patrick Steinbrunner

    • Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

  • Matthew Randall Stoneking

    • Lawrence University

  • Clifford M Surko

    • University of California, San Diego

  • Annika Zettl

    • University of Greifswald