UC Berkeley

One proposed technique for trapping anti-atoms is to superimpose a Ioffe-Pritchard style magnetic-minimum neutral trap on a standard Penning trap used to trap the charged atomic constituents. Adding a magnetic multipole field in this way removes the azimuthal symmetry of the ideal Penning trap and introduces a new avenue for radial diffusion. Enhanced diffusion will lead to increased Joule heating of a non-neutral plasma, potentially adversely affecting the formation rate of anti-atoms and increasing the required trap depth. We present a model of this effect, along with an approach to minimizing it, with comparison to measurements from an intended anti-atom trap.