Before the 1996 shutdown of the Low Energy Antiproton Ring at CERN, Los Alamos scientists helped confine 1 million antiprotons in a trap for more than an hour. In 1999 Los Alamos researchers were part of a collaboration that successfully confined neutrons in a three-dimensional magnetic trap to determine how long it takes them to decay. Using the reactor at the Center for Neutron Research in Gaithersburg, Md., part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, neutrons were directed down the beamline into a neutron trap filled with helium chilled to minus 460 degrees Fahrenheit. A fraction of the billions of neutrons created by the reactor beam were confined in the long, narrow trap, which held the neutrons in the supercold liquid helium until they decayed approximately 12 minutes later. In the 21st Century, particle and atomic trapping experiments will continue to provide scientists with more accurate measurements of particle lifetimes and improvements in the understanding of the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.
Weak force is one the four forces that order the universe.
The others are gravity, electromagnetism and the strong force. Cosmologists eventually will use the data from trapping experiments to refine models of the early formation of the universe.