The EPSRC Critical Mass Award will help the Group to progress towards spectroscopic investigations of antihydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen.
The Swansea team carries out this work at CERN – the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland – through the Antiproton Decelerator within the Antihydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus (ALPHA) project.
The aim is to make precise comparisons of the properties of hydrogen and antihydrogen as tests of symmetry laws in nature, which will hopefully allow the Swansea team to shed light on the fact that the Universe seems to contain no antimatter, which is currently not understood.
Professor Mike Charlton (pictured), who has led Swansea's Atomic Molecular and Laser Physics Group for more than a decade, said: "We are delighted to receive this prestigious Critical Mass Award from the EPSRC, which will hopefully enable us to routinely trap antihydrogen long enough for it to be available for spectroscopy using lasers and microwaves."
For more information on the work of Swansea University’s Physics Department visit www.swansea.ac.uk/physics/ and the ALPHA project visit http://alpha.web.cern.ch/alpha/.
