Forty years of antiprotons

The discovery of the antiproton some 40 years ago and the almost synchronous fall of parity $\mathrm{}\left(P\right)\mathrm{}$ and charge conjugation $\mathrm{}\left(C\right)\mathrm{}$ symmetries were soon followed by the realization that $\mathrm{CPT}$ rather than $C$ invariance is the fundamental symmetry connecting matter and antimatter, and that consequently any measurement of the antiproton’s properties can be interpreted as a test of that symmetry. It is the latter view of the antiproton, as an object of study in its own right, rather than as a means to such other ends as the production of gauge bosons and meson resonances, that is presented here. The authors review the technical steps that have led from the handful of antiprotons observed by Chamberlain, Segrè, Wiegand, and Ypsilantis to the intense, high-quality beams available today and show how the state of rest and isolation required for high precision measurements of their properties can be achieved by confining them in electromagnetic traps or in their microscopic counterparts, exotic atoms. The test bench role of antiprotons and antihydrogen atoms for both $\mathrm{CPT}$ symmetry and the gravitational weak equivalence principle is discussed, and the body of experimental results obtained since 1955 critically reviewed from this standpoint. Future experiments are then discussed in the light of the closure of the CERN Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR), its replacement in 1999 by the Antiproton Decelerator (AD), and the likely antiproton source at the Japan Hadron Facility.