- Open Access
Spectrometry of captured highly charged ions produced following antiproton annihilations
Phys. Rev. Research 8, 023202 – Published 22 May, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/gg1j-vtvy
Abstract
We report the first capture and time-of-flight spectrometry of highly charged ions (HCIs) produced following annihilations of trapped antiprotons in a Penning-Malmberg trap. A multistep nested-trap technique was developed at the AEḡIS experiment at CERN to trap and identify the annihilation-linked ions using external scintillators. The successful capture and mass analysis of helium and argon ions confirm the viability of the approach. This proof-of-principle demonstration establishes the foundation for future high-resolution mass spectrometry of recoil-filtered nuclear annihilation fragments. This methodology could enable studies of antiprotonic atom formation and cascade dynamics, allow the in-trap synthesis of radioactive HCIs, and provide a particularly sensitive probe of the neutron-to-proton composition at the outer periphery of the nucleus.
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