Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PUMA (antiProton Unstable Matter Annihilation)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-01-01 bis 2023-06-30
We propose a new physics program to determine the neutron over proton densities at the nuclear surface for the most exotic nuclei that can be produced today, to evidence and to characterise neutron halos and skins in medium and heavy mass nuclei. PUMA will also allow the spectroscopy of single-particle states in heavy nuclei above Z=100 where nuclear stability is only due to shell effects and will offer a new insight into the unknown shell structure at the top of the nuclear landscape. To address these two questions of nuclear structure, PUMA explores a new way to study radioactive nuclei produced at very low kinetic energy: the interaction of antiprotons with unstable nuclei. This approach has never been developed anywhere thus far.
PUMA is based on a new apparatus: a transportable magnetic trap to store antiprotons and maximise their interaction with slow rare isotopes in order to trigger annihilations and measure the resulting radiation. The PUMA methodology involves two steps. (i) The storage of antiprotons will be performed at the new AD/ELENA facility of CERN in collaboration with the GBAR collaboration. (ii) The PUMA physics program is to take place at CERN/ISOLDE.
PUMA will open new horizons for nuclear structure research.
The detection system has been designed and simulated. In parallel, the implantation of PUMA at CERN has been worked through: experimental sites at ELENA and ISOLDE have been designed.
The elements of the device to slow-down antiprotons upstream PUMA have been built.
PUMA aims at the first annihilation of antimatter from short lived nuclei.
From the targeted measurement, PUMA will provide a new observable to characterise halos and neutron skins in neutron rich nuclei.