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Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

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Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#31

Post by lutorm »

jonhohle wrote: post #12
Groxx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the bidding war... begin! Bidding is over! The ex-antimatter goes to...

I won the auction, and all I got was this stupid matter! (ex-antimatter == !(!matter) == matter)

Actually, the annihilation mostly produces photons, which aren't either matter or antimatter (or both, whichever way you like.)

Though you might have been lucky and gotten an antineutrino instead. Now you just have to find it...

Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#32

Post by InclinedPlane »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #24
alex_c wrote: post #22

The article doesn't spell it out, and I know practically nothing about the subject, but... what happens at the end of the 0.2s? Do the antimatter atoms drift out of the magnetic fields used to contain them? Do matter atoms drift in? Or is it some property of the atoms or magnetic fields? Basically, what needs to change to increase the 0.2s?

They are neutral hydrogen atoms - why does a magnetic field affect them anyway?

Hydrogen (and anti-Hydrogen) is diamagnetic.

Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#33

Post by mirkules »

"The collaboration reports success in producing antihydrogen in a so-called Cusp trap, an essential precursor to making a beam."

The article doesn't really say, but why are beams needed? Is it because these (anti-)particles are always moving or have such a short lifespan, or is there some other reason beams are so important?

(The sci-fi nerd in me first thought of weaponizing it, but I hope that never happens)

Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#34

Post by metageek »

mirkules wrote: post #33

"The collaboration reports success in producing antihydrogen in a so-called Cusp trap, an essential precursor to making a beam." The article doesn't really say, but why are beams needed? Is it because these (anti-)particles are always moving or have such a short lifespan, or is there some other reason beams are so important? (The sci-fi nerd in me first thought of weaponizing it, but I hope that never happens)

It's probably so the beam can be fired at a beam of hydrogen, as in a particle accelerator.

Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#36

Post by Qz »

juleswellesley wrote: post #5
lpgauth wrote: post #3

"Geneva, 17 November 2011" A message from the future...

In accordance with Feynman's idea that the positron is an electron moving backwards in time... ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Antimatter )

Wheeler invoked this concept to explain the identical properties shared by all electrons, suggesting that "they are all the same electron" with a complex, self-intersecting worldline.

Quantum mechanics is so cool!

Re: Antimatter atoms produced and trapped at CERN

#37

Post by someone_here »

lutorm wrote: post #30
Dylan16807 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought this had already been tested on antiprotons, but I'm not seeing any references for it. Just a note that results from testing anti-hydrogen for gravity should be had in the next few years. Maybe containing something so charged overwhelms gravity?

As has been alluded to, gravity is an extremely weak force, so any gravitational effect is easily masked by electroweak forces until you accumulate a very significant mass. There's no way they can measure this on a single atom.

But easy to test with 2 atoms! Smash them together at a high enough speed where e=mc^2 says they would create a black hole. If they are destroyed in a blip of Hawking radiation, they had gravity!
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