Experimental studies of antiprotonic helium

This talk describes the experimental studies of metastable antiprotonic helium "atomcules" pHe/sup +/ (a neutral exotic atom consisting of a helium nucleus, an antiproton and an electron) performed at CERN-LEAR, and future plans for experiments at the forthcoming Antiproton Decelerator (AD) at CERN. Laser spectroscopy experiments are reviewed which led to the observation of a total of 13 resonant transitions of the antiproton in both p/sup 4/He/sup +/ and p/sup 3/He/sup +/, and revealed a hyperfine splitting in one transition. A level of precision has been reached where the most accurate 3-body calculations need to include QED effects like the Lamb-shift to come close to the experimental results. (52 refs).