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But the core question is valid. As I pointed out in a discussion last summer - If after the initial expansion, the Universe had equal amounts of matter and anti-matter - where is it all - anti- matter I mean.
Articles about anti-matter are nothing new here I know, but the research is getting so advanced that it certainly has a wow factor built in now. Anti-matter.... a few billionths of a second after the big bang, theory has it that there was an equal amount of matter and anti-matter. Since matter and anti-matter can not exist in proximity, matter and anti-matter annihilated one another. Now the astute among us is asking uhh if that is so, how come I see a universe full of matter. Well it seems that the matter/antimatter conversion is not 100% efficient and all the mass we see now is a fraction less than 1% of what there was before the conversion. Wild huh? Physics says that there should be way more mass in the universe, now we think we know where it went..
Anyway, that just shows how unbelievably difficult it is to store antimatter. And to consider large amounts for a long time is surely something of science fiction. Not so says an article in Yahoo News sent in by Tim Sayell.
Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva say that they have been successful at trapping anti-hydrogen atoms for the unheard of time of 1000 seconds. Yes in the normal world that's a stunning 16 minutes and change! What is a bit weird is Cern scientists are not really "trapping" anti-hydrogen as "cooking" it. From the article:
In the ALPHA project, the researchers captured anti-hydrogen by mixing anti-protons with positrons — anti-electrons — in a vacuum chamber, where they combine into anti-hydrogen atoms.
The whole process occurred within a magnetic "bottle"
To detect what they have trapped, the scientists turn off the magnetic fields allowing the anti-hydrogen to interact with normal matter.
Cern scientists are not sitting on their laurels however. The problem with the present trap is that there is no way to interact with the anti-matter directly. They are hoping that by 2012 they will have a new trap built that will allow scientists to study the anti-matter directly with lasers to allow spectroscopic experiments on the anti-atoms.
The Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) located in Switzerland has set a new record for capturing antihydrogen, a form of anti-matter, and storing it for a record setting 10,000 times longer than previous times. ALPHA's newest record is 1000 seconds or approximately sixteen minutes.
With the additional time, physicists can now study antimatter in general and antihydrogen specifically. Some of the crucial information that can be gained are:
Does antihydrogen have the same level of energy as normal hydrogen?
Is it an exact mirror image of matter and other fundamental questions.
Ok here is something else weird to think about. Recently we have been hearing some murmurings in the media about anti-matter. We are all up to speed as to what anti-matter is right? For every atomic particle and atom there is a theoretical mirror image opposite that possibly exists. Should a normal and an anti particle meet, they will annihilate each other.
For years, researchers have had great success at trapping anti-electrons and anti-protons. However in 1995 CERN took a giant step into the future when it succeeded in trapping an anti-hydrogen atom and in 2002 began producing large amounts of the anti-matter atoms.
What is weird about anti-matter is there isn't any of it to be found in the universe. Well not much at least. If we understand the dynamics of the big bang there should have been just as much anti-matter as matter in those first few moments. The given wisdom is that when anti-matter meets normal matter each are totally destroyed - completely. Ok, so why is there all kinds of normal matter and no anti-matter? Well it seems that maybe in the weirdness of quantum physics the total annihilation may be tilted in normal matter's favor. So when all was said and done and all the anti-matter had destroyed all the normal matter, there was an infinitesimal fraction of normal matter left over. Yes, the total matter in the universe was left. Does that twist your head a bit?
Here is more then. Why is everyone so interested in anti-matter? Well it seems that when matter and antimatter meet they release a fantastic amount of energy. How fantastic? Well in orders of magnitudes, antimatter is a mind numbing 10 magnitudes greater than chemical reactions and an order of 4 magnitudes greater than nuclear fission reactions and 2 magnitudes greater than fusion! For comparison, 1 kilogram of antimatter with an equal amount of normal matter would release almost the same amount of energy that was ever created by the biggest nuclear bomb ever detonated, Tsar Bomba with a yield 50 mega-tons! Tsar Bomba used hundreds of kilos of nuclear material! Antimatter is a great power source and it is perfectly clean.
So what is all the excitement? Well for the first time Cern has not only able to produce anti-hydrogen but they are able to store it! According to the article sent in by Dan from the Los Angeles Times: The amount of anti-hydrogen stored so far is 38 atoms and were held for just about 1/5 of a second.
Shaun Saunders sends in an article with some real meat on it! An article in New Scientist online ask the seemingly innocent question: How would antimatter react in a gravity field? As the article points out: Physicists have studied antimatter, the mirror version of ordinary matter, for decades. They know, for example, that antiparticles have the same mass as ordinary particles, but opposite charge. But no one knows what effect gravity will have on such particles.
Now several groups want to measure exactly how the Earth will pull on antimatter. The tests would create a horizontal beam of anti-particles and measure how much gravity deflects it.
The test may show no difference between the way matter and antimatter fall. But some researhers are holding out hope that they may see something completely unexpected, which could point the way to new gravity-like forces, or perhaps even anti-gravity.
Shaun Saunders found a neat article written by Charles Q. Choi that appeared in Live Science online. The article deals with finding a source of large amounts of anti-matter that was discovered in the late 70s but no source could be found. That may have changed. Here are some excerpts.
For decades, scientists had clues that a vast cloud of antimatter lurked in space, but they did not know where it came from. The mysterious source of this antimatter has now been discovered -- stars getting ripped apart by neutron stars and black holes. In 1978, gamma ray detectors flown on balloons detected a type of gamma ray that is known to be emitted when electrons collide with positrons -- meaning there was antimatter in space. These gamma rays apparently came from a cloud of antimatter roughly 10,000 light-years across surrounding our galaxy's core. This giant cloud shines brightly with gamma rays, with about the energy of 10,000 suns. New findings suggest that positrons originate mainly from stars getting devoured by black holes and neutron stars. As a black hole or neutron star destroys a star, tremendous amounts of radiation are released. Just as electrons and positrons emit the tell-tale gamma rays upon annihilation, so too can gamma rays combine to form electrons and positrons, providing the mechanism for the creation of the antimatter cloud.
Scientist has suceeded in combining normal matter with their mirror equivalent in anti-matter to create - for the first time - Di-positronium. The new molecule was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science. Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons. The discovery is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers. Researchers in the field describe the difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion. As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor.
Scientist has suceeded in combining normal matter with their mirror equivalent in anti-matter to create - for the first time - Di-positronium. The new molecule was predicted to exist in 1946 but has remained elusive to science. Now, a US team has created thousands of the molecules by merging electrons with their antimatter equivalent: positrons. The discovery is a key step in the creation of ultra-powerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers. Researchers in the field describe the difference in the power available from a gamma-ray laser compared to a normal laser is the same as the difference between a nuclear explosion and a chemical explosion. As a result, there is a huge interest in the technology from the military as well as energy researchers who believe the lasers could be used to kick-start nuclear fusion in a reactor.
