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Quantum physics

Spin flips with a single proton

Nature volume 475, pages 298–299 (2011)Cite this article

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For the first time, spin flips of a single trapped proton in free space have been observed. This is a major step towards a million-fold improved test of matter–antimatter symmetry using a nuclear magnetic moment.

The world, as we know and feel it every day, consists of matter. Whereas the Big Bang is considered to have created both matter and antimatter in equal quantities, the present-day Universe clearly seems to display a huge asymmetry: antimatter is rarely observed, and if it is, it's only in highly exotic environments or in some radioactive reactions. Writing in Physical Review Letters, Ulmer et al.1 describe an experiment that paves the way for a high-precision test of the theoretically expected matter–antimatter symmetry.

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Figure 1: Penning trap used by Ulmer et al.1 to measure proton spin flips.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rainer Blatt is at the Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, and the Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Austrian Academy of Sciences, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.,

    Rainer Blatt

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  1. Rainer Blatt
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Correspondence to Rainer Blatt.

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Blatt, R. Spin flips with a single proton. Nature 475, 298–299 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/475298a

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