Measurement of the antiproton-nucleus annihilation cross-section at very low energies

The main fields of investigation of the ASACUSA Experiment at the Antiproton Decelerator at CERN concern test of CPT violation through spectroscopy of antihydrogen and antiprotonic helium, atomic collision and nuclear physics experiments. The nuclear physics program foresees measurements of pnuclei cross sections at low energies (from fewMeV down to the keV region) using a cylindrical detector with 6 layers of scintillating fibers surrounding the target. These measurements will contribute to understand the dynamic of the annihilation process and in particular to explain why the antiproton-nucleus annihilation rate at very low energy appears independent from the size of the target, as measured by the Obelix Collaboration at CERN for H, D and He. The preliminary results of the measurements performed during 2008 are presented. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009.