New Source of Dense, Cryogenic Positron Plasmas

We have developed a new method, based on the ballistic transfer of preaccumulated plasmas, to obtain large and dense positron plasmas in a cryogenic environment. The method involves transferring plasmas emanating from a region with a low magnetic field (0.14 T) and relatively high pressure (${10}^{-9}\mathrm{mbar}$) into a 15 K Penning-Malmberg trap immersed in a 3 T magnetic field with a base pressure better than ${10}^{-13}\mathrm{mbar}$. The achieved positron accumulation rate in the high field cryogenic trap is more than one and a half orders of magnitude higher than the previous most efficient UHV compatible scheme. Subsequent stacking resulted in a plasma containing more than $1.2\times {10}^9$ positrons, which is a factor 4 higher than previously reported. Using a rotating wall electric field, plasmas containing about $20\times {10}^6$ positrons were compressed to a density of $2.6\times {10}^{10}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$. This is a factor of 6 improvement over earlier measurements.