Antimatter Eludes Search Efforts

[n2doc]

By Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer
posted: 10 November 2008 08:10 am ET

Scientists are on the hunt for matter's arch nemesis, antimatter, and new evidence suggests the search may have become even trickier.

The data, collected at a supercluster of galaxies called the Bullet Cluster, show no evidence of primordial antimatter. But the non-finding helps to set a limit on where the wacky particles could be hiding, the researchers say.

Antimatter is real. It is made of elementary particles, each with the same mass but opposite charge and magnetic properties as a corresponding counterpart of matter. A proton's antimatter counterpart is called an antiproton and that for an electron is called a positron.

While the stuff is either not around today or present only in miniscule amounts, scientists say that just seconds after the Big Bang, the universe was flooded with particles of both matter and antimatter. When the rival particles collided, they destroyed each other and produced energy (in the form of gamma rays). Most of this material annihilated early on.

But since slightly more matter than antimatter is thought to have existed initially, only matter was left behind, at least in the local universe, which includes the stars and galaxies located less than 500 million light-years away. (One light-year is the distance light will travel in a year, or about 6 trillion miles, or 10 trillion km.).

There's a chance antimatter could have survived in the more distant reaches of the universe.

more:

http://www.livescience.com/space/081110-mm-anti-matter.html

[Recursion]

1. Symmetry is a funny thing

I recommend Feynman's lecture on it for those whom this state confuses.

[Lerkfish]

2. but captain, we canno mix the matter and antimatter engines, or the dilithium crystals will

\


explode us all ta kingdom come!

[crikkett]

3. This is actually a very quarky headline.

:evilgrin:

[Lerkfish]

4. oh, you're charm-ing

[Random_Australian]

12. What kind of strange person makes puns like that? Up until now,

things were just tops, but now the humour has gone down to the bottom of the barrel.

There, I got strange, up, top, down and bottom. :)

Working "leptons" into ordinary conversation would be a bit more challenging though. Maybe W's antics will help.

There, I got W (as in the W boson).

Let that be a lesson to you- never start joking about quarks. :)

[Occulus]

14. Puts a new spin on things, doesn't it?

:D

[Sirveri]

5. Nuclear reactors create anti-matter on a regular basis.

High energy gamma rays passing by a large enough nucleus will split to create an electron and a positron (postively charged electron, the anti-matter particle of the electron).

In fact radioactive waste like Cs135 and Strontium 90 produce powerful enough gamma rays to also produce anti-matter. As the mass equivalency required to produce anti-matter is just above 2 MeV and these materials normally have gamma decay energies of 5 MeV.

[Lerkfish]

6. gee, I suddenly feel really stupid after reading your post

which isn't all that hard to accomplish, actually.

:)

good on ya for knowing all that.

[crikkett]

8. From his avatar it seems he's a Nuke

...a submariner who's an engineer on a nuclear sub... so he would have to know. Those dudes are hot shit, positively atomic.

Some of my best friends were Nukes...

[Sirveri]

11. Yes, I went into the hell that is nuclear power.

Submarines and hazing, what fun. I'm not sure if I would do it over again, but if I score a good job now that I'm finally out I might say I'd do it again.

[n2doc]

7. Ahh, but it is annihilated nearly instantly

The article scientists are looking for a big pool of the stuff

[Sirveri]

10. We could probably create antimatter if we put our heads to it.

I mean it likely isn't that hard to build a gamma emmitter machine and launch 5MeV rays into a positively charged electromagnetic containment grid with a miniscule ammount of lead in a near perfect vaccuum.

[Occulus]

15. Fermilab produces antiprotons

per this 2006 article at physorg.com.

Since its start-up in 1985, Fermilab's Antiproton Source has produced just over 3.91 nanograms (billionth of a gram) of antiprotons, the largest amount ever produced by any accelerator.

That's not much at all, though.

[valerief]

9. Uncle Sam is even harder to find. nt

[caraher]

13. The interest here is less antimatter per se than primordial antimatter

That we produce antimatter today is a given. The question is why the stuff we see is matter and not antimatter, or some mix. And whether maybe there are regional variations in any such mix of "natural" matter/antimatter

[HamdenRice]

16. Not true. Scientist Werner von Schleibel found anti-matter

In fact it was an anti-matter of himself. When von Schleibel and anti-matter von Schleibel shook hands, however, they both detonated in a catastrophic explosion.