What if by some miscalculation, this study of antihydrogen causes an unexpected fusion reaction; more powerful than a hydrogen bomb?
Well, then somebody’s gonna get blowed up, alot.
No fusion reaction is anywhere near as efficient or powerful as an antimatter reaction. IIRC, antimatter annihilation is 100% efficient and pound for pound hundreds of times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. A few milligrams of antimatter could propel a manned mission to Mars in six weeks. It’s amazing stuff.
So scientists wouldn’t have to worry about an unexpected fusion reaction as much as accidental antimatter annihilation. But given the amounts they’ll be able to produce, even that shouldn’t be a problem, at least as I understand it.
The article says this new method should be able to produce several orders of magnitude more antimatter than the usual method of slamming things together in a particle accelerator. But that still is going to be a miniscule amount of antimatter. Just enough to study. Not enough to build a bomb, say. However, if they come up with new ways to make even more of it, eventually it could become a concern.