Free Republic

Physicists find ways to increase antihydrogen production 18 hours ago by Lisa Zyga feature Antihydrogen consists of an antiproton and a positron. Credit: public domain (Phys.org)—There are many experiments that physicists would like to perform on antimatter, from studying its properties with spectroscopic measurements to testing how it interacts with gravity. But in order to perform these experiments, scientists first need some antimatter. Of course, they won't be finding any in nature (due to antimatter's tendency to annihilate in a burst of energy when it comes in contact with ordinary matter), and creating it in the lab has proven to...

Scientists claim antimatter breakthrough Scientists have announced the first large-scale production of antimatter. A team based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva say they have developed a large amount of the substance. Antimatter is a reverse form of ordinary matter. When the two kinds of matter meet they annihilate each other in an enormous burst of energy. It's this process which provides the power source for Starship Enterprise in its film and TV space adventures. Physicists have made only very small quantities of antimatter before. But the CERN team say they have made at least 50,000 atoms...

Physicists claim antimatter breakthrough Physicists in Switzerland say they have captured antimatter for the first time. Scientists have often wondered whether they can get energy from the reaction when antimatter and matter collide. Until now they have found it difficult to make and control antiatoms. Researchers on the ATRAP experiment at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, now think they have succeeded. New Scientist reports they have made and stored thousands of antiatoms indefinitely in a particle trap. The team, led by Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard University, used powerful magnetic and electric fields to slow and ...

« Irradiate a millimeter-thick gold target with the right kind of laser and you might get a surprise in the form of 100 billion positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. Researchers had been studying the process at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where they used thin targets that produced far fewer positrons. The new laser method came about through simulations that showed a thicker target was more effective.And suddenly lasers and antimatter are again making news. Hui Chen is the Livermore scientist behind this work: “We’ve detected far more anti-matter than anyone else has ever measured in a laser experiment....

So - Dan Brown's turgid blockbuster Angels and Demons, in which a nefarious papal official nicks a vial of antimatter from CERN as part of a complicated scheme to become Pope by menacing the Vatican with explosive destruction. Twaddle? Or actually a perfectly feasible plan ripped from today's headlines, style of thing? Just a few minor technical errors hereWe here on the Reg particle-meddling desk naturally have no interest in the arcane Vatican rules of succession, the putative Illuminati secret society, the likelihood of finding a priest in the Pope's inner circle who would be capable of flying a helicopter...

Antimatter atoms have been trapped for the first time, scientists say. Researchers at Cern, home of the Large Hadron Collider, have held 38 antihydrogen atoms in place, each for a fraction of a second. Antihydrogen has been produced before but it was instantly destroyed when it encountered normal matter. The team, reporting in Nature, says the ability to study such antimatter atoms will allow previously impossible tests of fundamental tenets of physics. The current "standard model" of physics holds that each particle - protons, electrons, neutrons and a zoo of more exotic particles - has its mirror image antiparticle. The...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. European scientists say they have created enough antihydrogen — a type of the mirror-image, antimatter stuff that fictionally powers spaceships on Star Trek — to test a widely held basic model of the universe. While antihydrogen has been made before, the more than 50,000 atoms created at the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva are "by far, the most produced," said Jeffrey Hangst, a leader of the ATHENA collaboration, one of two groups of physicists working on antihydrogen at CERN. The quest to understand and manipulate antimatter is one of the most...

Canadian researchers instrumental in game-changing antimatter studyScience fiction is fast approaching science fact as researchers are progressing rapidly toward "bottling" antimatter. In a paper published online today by the journal Nature Physics, the ALPHA experiment at CERN, including key Canadian contributors, reports that it has succeeded in storing antimatter atoms for over 16 minutes. While carrying around bottled antimatter like in the movie Angels and Demons remains fundamentally far-fetched, storing antimatter for long periods of time opens up new vistas for scientists struggling to understand this elusive substance. ALPHA managed to store twice the antihydrogen (the antimatter partner to normal...

Enlarge Image Out with a bang. In this artist's rendition, an antihydrogen atom rattles around the ALPHA trap before escaping to create a pair of pions. Credit: CERN/ALPHA collaboration Just 6 months ago, physicists reported that they had trapped atoms made of antimatter for a fraction of a second. Now, the same team has held on to individual atoms of antihydrogen, each of which consists of an antiproton bound to a positron, for up to 15 minutes. That's long enough for an atom to lose all of its internal energy and settle into its least-energetic "ground state," a prerequisite...

Antimatter: The Conundrum of Storage by Paul Gilster on March 11, 2011 Are we ever going to use antimatter to drive a starship? The question is tantalizing because while chemical reactions liberate about one part in a billion of the energy trapped inside matter — and even nuclear reactions spring only about one percent of that energy free — antimatter promises to release what Frank Close calls ‘the full mc2 latent within matter.’ But assuming you can make antimatter in large enough amounts (no mean task), the question of storage looms large. We know how to store antimatter in...