PUMA, antiProton unstable matter annihilation
T. Aumann, W. Bartmann, Oliver Boine‐Frankenheim, A Bouvard, A. Broche, F. Butin, D. Calvet, J. Carbonell, Paolo Chiggiato, Herbert De Gersem, R. de Oliveira, T. Dobers, Felix Ehm, J. Ferreira Somoza, J. Fischer, M. Fraser, E. Friedrich, A. Frotscher, M. Gómez-Ramos, Jean-Louis Grenard, A. Hobl, Guillaume Hupin, A. Husson, P. Indelicato, K. Johnston, C. Klink, Y. Kubota, Rimantas Lazauskas, S. Malbrunot-Ettenauer, Nicolas Marsic, W. F. O Müller, S. Naimi, N. Nakatsuka, Rene Necca, D. Neidherr, G. Neyens, A. Obertelli, Yusuke Ono, Sergio Pasinelli, N. Paul, E. Pollacco, D. Rossi, H. Scheit, M. Schlaich, Alexander Schmidt, L. Schweikhard, R. Seki, S. Sels, E. Siesling, T. Uesaka, M. Vilén, M. Wada, F. Wienholtz, S. Wycech, Sónia Zacarias
Abstract
Abstract PUMA, antiProton Unstable Matter Annihilation, is a nuclear-physics experiment at CERN aiming at probing the surface properties of stable and rare isotopes by use of low-energy antiprotons. Low-energy antiprotons offer a very unique sensitivity to the neutron and proton densities at the annihilation site, i.e. in the tail of the nuclear density. Today, no facility provides a collider of low-energy radioactive ions and low-energy antiprotons: while not being a collider experiment, PUMA aims at transporting one billion antiprotons from ELENA, the Extra-Low-ENergy Antiproton ring, to ISOLDE, the rare-isotope beam facility of CERN. PUMA will enable the capture of low-energy antiprotons by short-lived nuclei and the measurement of the emitted radiations. In this way, PUMA will give access to the so-far largely unexplored isospin composition of the nuclear-radial-density tail of radioactive nuclei. The motivations, concept and current status of the PUMA experiment are presented.