The Magnetic Moments of the Proton and the Antiproton

A comparison of the magnetic moments of the proton and the antiproton provides a sensitive test of matter-antimatter symmetry. While the magnetic moment of the proton is known with a relative precision of 10 −8 , that of the antiproton is only known with moderate accuracy. Important progress towards a high-precision measurement of the particle’s magnetic moment was reported in 2011 by a group at Mainz when spin transitions of a single proton stored in a cryogenic Penning trap were observed. To resolve the single-proton spin flips, the so-called ’continuous Stern-Gerlach effect’ was utilized. Using this technique, the proton magnetic moment was measured by two groups at Mainz and Harvard with relative precisions of 8.9×10−6 and 2.5×10−6 , respectively. Currently, two collaborations at the CERN antiproton decelerator (AD)—a part of ATRAP and BASE—are pushing their efforts to apply the methods developed for the proton to measure the magnetic moment of the antiproton. Very recently, DiSciacca et al. reported on a measurement of the antiproton’s magnetic moment with a relative precision of 4.4 ppm, which is a improvement of the formerly best value by about a factor of 680. Using the so-called double Penning trap technique, both collaborations aim for a precision measurement at the level of at least 10−9 in future experiments, which would provide a highly sensitive test of the CPT symmetry using baryons