Danish atomic researchers revolutionise physics
/ritzau/ A Danish-led international research team is presenting the bold new results of an anti-matter project that could revolutionise physics for the future
A Danish-led team of researchers has become the first in the world to create cold atoms from anti-hydrogen: a development that has paved the way for scientists to research hydrogen and anti-hydrogen, and may one day contribute to fundamentally new physical theories.
The research team on the Athena project consists of 39 researchers from 12 countries. Jeffrey Hangst, a lector at Aarhus University, is the acting physics coordinator for the experiment undertaken at the European particle-physics laboratory CERN, in Switzerland.
"In the long term, our research could be tremendously significant to the way physicists perceive the world. Comparisons of hydrogen and anti-hydrogen could rock some of the fundamental theories commonly accepted within physics, including the Big Bang theory on the origins of the universe," says Jeffrey Hangst.
The revolutionary results of the team's research were publicised for the first time yesterday in the on-line edition of Nature Magazine.
"The results are a milestone in anti-matter research. It's opening the door for the first precise comparisons of the behaviour of atoms and anti-atoms, and will pave the way for the use of modern technology in capturing atoms, as well as cooling and manipulation of atomic anti-matter," says Hangst.
Three other Aarhus University researchers have also joined Jeffrey Hangst on the project.
