Modern physics experiments are frequently very complex, relying on multiple simultaneous events to happen in order to obtain the desired result. The experiment control system plays a central role in orchestrating the measurement setup: However, its development is often treated as secondary with respect to the hardware, its importance becoming evident only during the operational phase. Therefore, the AEgIS (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy) collaboration has created a framework for easily coding control systems, specifically targeting atomic, quantum, and antimatter experiments. This framework, called Total Automation of LabVIEW Operations for Science (TALOS), unifies all the machines of the experiment in a single entity, thus enabling complex high-level decisions to be taken, and it is constituted by separate modules, called MicroServices, that run concurrently and asynchronously. This enhances the stability and reproducibility of the system while allowing for continuous integration and testing while the control system is running. The system demonstrated high stability and reproducibility, running completely unsupervised during the night and weekends of the data-taking campaigns. The results demonstrate the suitability of TALOS to manage an entire physics experiment in full autonomy: being open-source, experiments other than the AEgIS experiment can benefit from it.
Graph showing the number of antiprotons captured vs the closure timing of the trap. It clearly shows the presence of a best working point. Closing too fast lets some antiprotons out, and, conversely, closing too slow lets some antiprotons escape after the bounce on the second electrode.
Graph showing the number of antiprotons captured varying the potential of the catching electrodes. This scan characterizes the energy profile of the p's passing through the degrader, and their ratio is in good accordance with our GEANT4 simulations.
Two graphs show the results of the scan over the horizontal and vertical displacements of the antiproton beam (on the left) and the horizontal and vertical angles (see Table 4, after). The color represents the intensity of the signal obtained on the MCP from the annihilations of the trapped antiprotons. The parameter space has been organized in this way, assuming that displacements and angles have independent effects, not for physics reasons, but because scanning over the full parameter space would have been impossible time-wise (10 steps per dimension 4 dimensions x 5 min of duration of the script ~35 days!).
We report on laser cooling of a large fraction of positronium (Ps) in free-flight by strongly saturating the $1^3S$-$2^3P$ transition with a broadband, long-pulsed 243 nm alexandrite laser. The ground state Ps cloud is produced in a magnetic and electric field-free environment. We observe two different laser-induced effects. The first effect is an increase in the number of atoms in the ground state after the time Ps has spent in the long-lived $3^3P$ states. The second effect is the one-dimensional Doppler cooling of Ps, reducing the cloud's temperature from 380(20) K to 170(20) K. We demonstrate a 58(9) % increase in the coldest fraction of the Ps ensemble.
SSPALS spectra of positronium in vacuum without lasers, with the 205 nm and 1064 nm lasers, with the 243 nm laser only, and with all three lasers 243 nm, 205 nm and 1064 nm. The 243 nm laser is firing during the time window from −20 to 50 ns, while the 205 nm and 1064 nm are injected 75 ns after positron implantation time (t = 0 ns). Each curve is an average of 90 individual spectra. The statistical error is smaller than the linewidths. For analysis, the spectra were integrated between 150 and 400 ns.
Ps velocity distribution measured by SSPALS. Transverse Doppler profile measured by two-photon resonant ionization. A Gaussian fit yields an rms width of 44(1) pm, which translates to a Ps rms velocity of 5.3 $\pm$ 0.2 × 10$^4$ m/s after deconvoluting the laser bandwidth.
Ps velocity distribution measured by SSPALS. Velocity-resolved increase in the number of ground state Ps atoms, induced by the 243 nm transitory excitation to the 2$^3$P level. At resonance, the expected Lamb dip is observed. A 2-Gaussian fit yields an rms width of the enveloping Gaussian of 44(3) pm, which corresponds to a Ps rms velocity of 4.9 $\pm$ 0.4 × 10$^4$ m/s.
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