Abstract
We demonstrate a novel detection method for the cyclotron resonance frequency of an electron plasma in a Penning–Malmberg trap. With this technique, the electron plasma is used as an in situ diagnostic tool for the measurement of the static magnetic field and the microwave electric field in the trap. The cyclotron motion of the electron plasma is excited by microwave radiation and the temperature change of the plasma is measured non-destructively by monitoring the plasma's quadrupole mode frequency. The spatially resolved microwave electric field strength can be inferred from the plasma temperature change and the magnetic field is found through the cyclotron resonance frequency. These measurements were used extensively in the recently reported demonstration of resonant quantum interactions with antihydrogen.
Highlights
Cyclotron frequency measurements of single particles and sparse clouds in Penning traps are commonly used in high precision ion mass measurements [1,2,3] and in measurements of the proton [4] and electron [5] magnetic moments
We operate under the assumption that the cyclotron frequency of the electron plasma is equivalent to the single particle cyclotron frequency, fc = q B/2π m, where q is the electron charge, B is the amplitude of the magnetic field and m is the electron mass
This is of the same order as the spectral width of the 4 μs microwave pulses and may be improved with longer pulses. This is approaching the order on which systematic shifts of the observed resonance away from the single particle cyclotron frequency, due to the plasma rotation, are expected
Summary
Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada. Present address: Centre for Cold Matter, Imperial College, London SW7 2BW, UK. Present address: Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA. Present address: Scuola Normale Superiore, I-56126 Pisa, Italy. Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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