- 3141 - ANTIMATTER - how to study it? New research from a CERN-based ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) has demonstrated for the first time how lasers can be used to slow down antihydrogen atoms, cooling them to near absolute zero (nearly -460 Fahrenheit) and making it possible to finally make precise measurements of these volatile particles.
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- Antimatter is invisible to the naked eye, will self-destruct if you touch it, and should have caused the destruction of the universe just moments after the Big Bang.
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- Scientists have been attempting to capture and experiment on antimatter for decades, but finding the right tool to properly corral these atoms has been difficult because particle decelerators (a particle accelerator’s ice-cold cousin) and dense gas clouds that might hold other types of matter steady can easily cause the annihilation of antimatter. That’s why the research team behind this experiment turned to a neutral medium, photons, for their experiment.
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- Because a photon is made of pure energy, researchers can use photons to interact with antimatter particles without triggering their destruction. By using an ultraviolet laser tuned precisely to the energy of these antihydrogen atoms, the researchers were able to decelerate these atoms by 6x their initial speeds using lasers that up to now have been elusive.
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- When the universe collided into existence just after the Big Bang, it should’ve contained equal amounts of both antimatter and matter, creating symmetry in the universe, an antiparticle for every particle.
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- But because matter and antimatter annihilate on impact by essentially canceling out each other’s charge and spin and creating a massive amount of energy in their place, this could have ended the universe as soon as it began.
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- The big question now is: why didn’t it, and why is our universe asymmetrically full of matter instead of antimatter? Because hydrogen is matter’s most abundant element, that naturally makes antihydrogen an attractive candidate for scientists to study in order to get to the bottom of this mystery.
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- To make antihydrogen, the same CERN particle accelerators that feed protons to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) make antiprotons by slamming protons into a metal target. The resulting antiprotons are held in CERN’s Antimatter Decelerator ring and delivered to groups like ALPHA. These are then combined with positrons (the anti-electron) that can be collected from decaying radioactive sources to create an antihydrogen atom.
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- This elusive antimatter in the same as matter and has the exact same structure and properties as matter as we know it, but an opposite charge and spin. Studying this strange breed of matter could help scientists crack open essential questions about our universe, including why antimatter and matter didn’t destroy the universe after the Big Bang and how Einstein’s theory of general relativity may be proven, or broken.
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- Produce roughly 500 to 1,000 antihydrogen particles over the course of 4 hours by mixing antiprotons and positrons (the opposite of an electron) together in a magnetic chamber
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- Use microwaves to bump out excess particle clutter from the apparatus, including antihydrogen atoms in unnecessary energy levels
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- Pulse ultraviolet laser beams at the remaining antihydrogen particles, causing them to change energy states and, ultimately, slow down.
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- To slow down the antihydrogen particles scientists pulsed ultraviolet light beams on the atoms, causing them to jump to and fro energy levels and slow down.
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- When done just right, this process can slow down highly energetic antihydrogen particles with speeds of about 186 mph to just under 30 mph.
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- This experiment was able to hold the atoms in this state for over an hour. This is a huge leap from the origin of antimatter science in the 1990s, where atoms would destroy themselves in a matter of seconds.
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- In addition to investigating theories like the symmetry of matter and antimatter and general relativity, better control over these antimatter atoms could also allow scientists to one day even form antimatter molecules or adapt the system to better control ions for quantum information systems as well.
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- The photon is the quantum excitation of the electromagnetic field. It is massless but carries momentum. A photon can therefore exert a force on an object upon collision. Slowing the translational motion of atoms and ions by application of such a force, known as laser cooling, was first demonstrated 40 years ago.
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- Laser cooling revolutionized atomic physics and it is now a workhorse in many fields, including studies on quantum degenerate gases, quantum information, atomic clocks and tests of fundamental physics.
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- Laser cooling of ant hydrogen which is the antimatter atom consisting of an antiproton and a positron. By exciting the 1S–2P transition in antihydrogen with pulsed, narrow-linewidth, Lyman-α laser radiation, we Doppler-cool a sample of magnetically trapped antihydrogen.
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- The laser trap couples the longitudinal and transverse motions of the anti-atoms, leading to cooling in all three dimensions. We observe a reduction in the median transverse energy by more than an order of magnitude—with a substantial fraction of the anti-atoms attaining submicroelectronvolt transverse kinetic energies.
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- We also report the observation of the laser-driven 1S–2S transition in samples of laser-cooled antihydrogen atoms. The observed spectral line is approximately four times narrower than that obtained without laser cooling.
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- The demonstration of laser cooling and its immediate application has far-reaching implications for antimatter studies. A more localized, denser and colder sample of antihydrogen will drastically improve spectroscopic and gravitational studies of antihydrogen in ongoing experiments.
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- The demonstrated ability to manipulate the motion of antimatter atoms by laser light will potentially provide ground-breaking opportunities for future experiments, such as anti-atomic fountains, anti-atom interferometry and the creation of antimatter molecules.
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- Other Reviews available:
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- 3115 - ANTIMATTER - created for research. - When the Universe first formed some 14 billion years ago an equal amount of matter and antimatter were formed. Somehow the two sets of particles got separated and we got lucky and ended up on the matter side of the equation. However, if the two particles ever come back together they annihilate each other back to pure energy again. Not good for us.
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- 3092 - ANTIMATTER - Teaching the Science. If you do not know the answer it must be science. Science is a process to learn answers to questions.. When you are curious about something, you observe its characteristics, you form a hypothesis, and then confirm it right or wrong with objective means.
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- 3046 - ANTIMATTER - and the Higgs Boson discoveries? Why is the universe is dominated by matter over antimatter, but there could be entire stars, and maybe even galaxies, in the universe made of antimatter. If the Universe did start out of ‘nothing” then there is equal amounts of matter and antimatter that would come back together and annihilate each other back to “nothing” again.
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- 3039 - ANTIMATTER - the opposite of normal matter? "Antimatter." is just like normal matter, with all the same properties and all the same abilities to make up atoms and molecules, except for one crucial difference: It has an opposite charge
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- 2679 - ANTIMATTER - what happens when we find it? One of the biggest mysteries in Physics remains, why is there more matter than antimatter? The Conservation of Energy tells us that at the time of the Big Bang, when matter was first created from energy, there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created.
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- 2562 - ANTIMATTER - mystery in physics? Why is there more matter than antimatter? The Conservation of Energy tells us that at the time of the Big Bang, when matter was first created from energy, there should have been equal amounts of matter and antimatter created. When matter and antimatter come back together again they annihilate each other and everything returns back to energy again, according to E=mc^2, Energy is Conserved.
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- 2561 - ANTIMATTER BLACKHOLES - what happens when they meet? Antimatter is not science fiction, it is all around us. Antimatter is a mass that has the opposite electric charge but otherwise is exactly the same as ordinary matter, its counterpart. What makes antimatter fascinating is that when it meets up with matter the two annihilate each other back into energy, according to E = mc^2.
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- 2560 - ANTIMATTER - is all around us? Anti-matter is a term that most people relate to science fiction. It is the ultimate fuel used to power space ships traveling at near light speed. Few people realize that anti-matter is all around us, all the time, everyday. Anti-matter is created naturally in nature through radioactivity.
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- 2376 - ANTI-MATTER - Why does it exist? Present theory suggests that if particles outnumbered antiparticles in the Big Bang by as little as one part in 100 million, then the present universe could be explained by those extra particles that were not annihilated by an antiparticle counterpart.
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- 2244 - Matter is a mystery that we do not know how to explain. When the Big Bang occurred, our standard model predicts that there should have been an equal amount of matter and antimatter created. If it all came from nothing it has to add up to nothing. There needs to be equal amounts of matter and antimatter.
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- 1892 - Energy is converted into matter every day in our upper atmosphere.
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- 1746 - Does antimatter really exist?
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- 1393 - Does antimatter really exist? We know that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is still producing antimatter, and the resulting Gamma Rays.
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- 1303 - Why look for antimatter in he Antarctic.
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- 1272 - Teaching the science of antimatter.
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- 1149 - Why does matter outnumber antimatter?
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- 971 - Notes from lecture about the Standard Linear Accelerator lecture on antimatter.
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- April 29, 2021 3141
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