Abstract

Short laser pulses are shown to provide a useful tool of study and control of the new exotic atomic system, the antiprotonic helium. The recently discovered metastable states of this system [1] are of significant interest as a means of accumulating antimatter in neutral atoms. Kinetics of transitions from the metastable states to lower energy short-lived states followed by immediate annihilation is the only source of information about the populations, energies, and lifetimes of the metastable states. However, the time spectrum of delayed annihilation is a global and non-selective characteristic of the system as a whole, not of individual metastable states. By means of short resonance laser pulses one can change the initial conditions for further decay process, thus making it informative about the individual energy levels [2].

© 1998 IEEE