Earthbound Antimatter Mystery Deepens After Scientists Rule Out Pulsar Source

Space.com ^ | November 16, 2017 | Harrison Tasoff,

[BenLurkin]

The recent finding, detailed in the journal Science today (Nov. 17), concerns positrons, the antimatter complements of electrons. High-energy particles, usually protons, traveling across the galaxy can create pairs of positrons and electrons when they interact with dust and gas in space, study co-author Hao Zhou, at Los Alamos National Lab, told Space.com. In 2008, the space-based PAMELA detector measured unexpectedly high numbers of earthbound positrons. This was about 10 times what they were expecting to see, according to Zhou.

...

Zhou's team made detailed measurements of the gamma-rays coming from the direction of two nearby pulsars — Geminga and its companion PSR B0656+14 — that are the right age and distance from Earth to account for the excess positrons. To do this, the scientists used the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory, located about 4 hours east of Mexico City. HAWC comprises more than 300 tanks of extra-pure water. When gamma-rays plow into the atmosphere, they create a cascade of high-energy particles. As this shower of particles passes through HAWC's tanks, it emits flashes of blue light, which scientists can use to determine the energy and origin of the original cosmic ray.

The data from HAWC revealed that particles are streaming away from the pulsars too slowly to account for the excess positrons, according to a statement by the University of Maryland, whose researchers also contributed to the work. In order to have arrived here by now, the particles would have needed to leave before the pulsars had formed...

Zhou's colleagues are quick to point out an important caveat. "Our measurement doesn't decide the question in favor of dark matter, but any new theory that attempts to explain the excess using pulsars will need to match the new data," University of Maryland physicist Jordan Goodman...said...

[glasseye]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-matter-hunt-fails-to-find-the-elusive-particles/?wt.mc=SA_Reddit-Share

http://www.newsweek.com/search-dark-matter-dealt-another-blow-another-hiding-place-elusive-substance-706885

There are more...

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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[eldoradude]

Calling it a negatron would have been racist.

[sparklite2]

Thanks. The Newsweek thread is only eight days old, and they’ve locked it already, with maybe ten posts. I don’t know what to make of that.

[sparklite2]

the massive but hard-to-detect substance that is thought to comprise 85% of the material Universe. --- scientific american

The thing physicists are missing is dark matter. They know it exists, and they know it makes up 27 percent of the universe, --- newsweek

The batteries are dead in somebody's slide rule.   LOL

[PIF]

“‘Dark matter’ is a newly dead theory.
Several recent studies have killed it.”

Therefore, the science is settled ...

[samtheman]

Name one

[bar sin·is·ter]

Got any links?

[glasseye]

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.05024

https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.10378v1

[SuperLuminal]

Dang Cherenkov radiation...More Russian collusion...Mueller to indict Cherenkov soonest...