A PORTABLE POSITRON ACCUMULATOR FOR ANTIHYDROGEN FORMATION

A pulsed source of positrons has been developed which may be useful for antihydrogen (HBAR) formation because it is portable when compared to accelerator-based sources. This positron accumulator uses a Penning-style trap to collect moderated positrons from a radioactive source. The positron pulses may be emitted with repetition rates in the range of 50-1000 Hz, which is appropriate for HBAR production schemes involving laser-induced recombination. Bunching techniques may be used to vary the width of the positron pulses over the range 30-120 ns (FWHM) to match the width of the antiproton and/or laser pulses. The efficiency of the accumulator increases from approximately 10% at 100 Hz to approximately 50% at 1000 Hz. At 250 Hz the efficiency is approximately 25% and the accumulator has delivered up to 8 e+/pulse per mCi of positron activity. This translates into approximately 1.2 x 10(5) e+/pulse for a 100 Ci Co-58 source.