Speaker: Eve Stenson, Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics
Abstract: The grand challenge being pursued by the APEX (A Positron Electron eXperiment) Collaboration is to create and study cold, confined, strongly magnetized, matter-antimatter “pair plasmas” in the laboratory. This unusually simple, symmetric type of plasma has been the subject of theory/simulation predictions going back over four decades; we would like to test some of these experimentally. Our path to pair plasmas involves joining together and further developing state-of-the-art physics and engineering in several disciplines. This talk will give an overview of recent highlights ---including novel techniques in the areas of positron beams, non-neutral plasmas, and gamma diagnostics --- as well as the progress on our two, complementary, tabletop-sized, pair-plasma traps: a levitated dipole and an optimized stellarator, both based on small, non-insulated, HTS (high-temperature superconducting) coils. Finally, I will outline plans for the few next year(s), during which we will continue to assemble the pieces of the pair plasma "puzzle", and beyond.