Antimatter Created & Captured

[FredM 0]

Breakthrough! Scientists Create and Capture Antimatter

 

Published November 17, 2010 | LiveScience

 

Scientists working on the big bang machine in Geneva have done the seemingly impossible: create, capture and release antimatter.

 

The development could help researchers devise laboratory experiments to learn more about this strange substance, which mostly disappeared from the universe shortly after the Big Bang around 14 billion years ago.

 

Trapping any form of antimatter is difficult, because as soon as it meets normal matter -- the stuff Earth and everything on it is made out of -- the two annihilate each other in powerful explosions.

 

In a new study, physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva were able to create 38 antihydrogen atoms and preserve each for more than one-tenth of a second. The project was part of the ALPHA (short for Antihydrogen Laser PHysics Apparatus) experiment, an international collaboration that includes physicists from the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

 

The antihydrogen atoms are composed of a positron (an antimatter electron) orbiting an antiproton nucleus.

 

"We are getting close to the point at which we can do some classes of experiments on the properties of antihydrogen," said Joel Fajans, a University of California, Berkeley professor of physics, and LBNL faculty scientist. "Since no one has been able to make these types of measurements on antimatter atoms at all, it's a good start."

 

Antimatter, first predicted by physicist Paul Dirac in 1931, has the opposite charge of normal matter and annihilates completely in a flash of energy upon interaction with normal matter. Antimatter is produced during high-energy particle interactions on Earth and in some decays of radioactive elements.

 

In 1955, University of California, Berkeley physicists Emilio Segre and Owen Chamberlain created antiprotons in the Bevatron accelerator at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now called Lawrence Berkeley), confirming their existence and earning the scientists the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics.

 

To create antihydrogen and keep it from immediately annihilating, the ALPHA team cooled antiprotons and compressed them into a matchstick-size cloud. Then the researchers nudged this cloud of cold, compressed antiprotons so it overlapped with a like-size positron cloud, where the two particles mated to form antihydrogen.

 

All this happened inside a magnetic bottle that traps the antihydrogen atoms. The magnetic trap is a specially configured magnetic field that uses an unusual and expensive superconducting magnet to prevent the antimatter particles from running into the edges of the bottle -- which is made of normal matter and would annihilate with the antimatter on contact.

 

"For the moment, we keep antihydrogen atoms around for at least 172 milliseconds -- about a sixth of a second -- long enough to make sure we have trapped them," said Jonathan Wurtele, a University of California, Berkeley professor of physics and LBNL faculty scientist.

 

The team's results will be published online Nov. 17 in the journal Nature.

 

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/17/.../#ixzz15cKS4F5Q

[will_marx 0]

Now...when will it become economically feasible for power generation? Think about it...essentially warp cores plugged into a smart power grid, providing us limitless clean energy.

[Dray McKenna 0]

Anyone ever wonder whether we have made this break through discovery long ago and they're just bringing it to light now? Just wondering...

[Chirakis 1]

Anyone ever wonder whether we have made this break through discovery long ago and they're just bringing it to light now? Just wondering...

 

'Tis a conspiracy - to keep the Terrans from developing the capability of efficient interstellar travel.

[Dray McKenna 0]

'Tis a conspiracy - to keep the Terrans from developing the capability of efficient interstellar travel.

 

My thoughts exactly. Darn those men in black. :(

[Dray McKenna 0]

This is an extension of the anti matter news from yesterday. The following was posted today on a news site and the reason I'm reposting it here is because of the mention of Star Ships being pondered and considered for the future. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Breakthrough in antimatter science: 'This could lead to starships'Posted by Shinta Dewi on November 19th, 2010 News-worthy.info — Scientists at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), the European research facility that hosts the world's largest particle accelerator, claimed that they have successfully created greater quantities of antimatters and stored them longer than ever before.They reported to have been able to create 38 atoms of antihydrogen and to keep them stable enough to last one tenth of a second before the atoms annihilated themselves. Since then, the report continues, they have been able to hold antimatter atoms for even longer although no specific duration given.Scientists have been able to create antimatter particles for decades, but it is hard to hold antimatter atoms for long as they will be destroyed once in contact with matter. The few antimatter particles that have ever been produced were always almost instantly destroyed."This is the first major step in a long journey," said Michio Kaku, physicist and author of Physics of the Impossible. "Eventually, we may go to the stars".See: www.news-worthy.info/breakthrough-in-antimatter-science-this-could-lead-to-starships/3671

[KhreRiovtRex 0]

Io word, Quantum Singularities. The only way to go.

 

Silly Lloan'nna!

 

t'Rexan

[Sorehl 0]

While the amount and duration are the big breakthroughs, we've been able to create antimatter for more than 50 years. Note that the amounts were still on the order of individual particles and the durations were just fractions of a second. Then consider that it takes megawatts just to power up the CERN superconducting supercollider. That's enough to power a small city. And finally, when the antimatter was annihilated, it didn't blow up a chunk of Switzerland. So you're looking at a huge amount of energy to create... a fairly inconsequential amount of energy. You don't ever get more energy out than you started with, in fact, usually much less. Antimatter as a fuel depends on the annihilation of its mass, but if you have to put energy in to make it, you'll never get more from the later annihilation. Combustion engines and fission reactors work because you start with fuel that already has energy bound in it, that you're liberating. Not so with generated antimatter.

 

Even in Trek terms, antimatter isn't magic. The trick isn't making it and then using it - there'd always be a net loss, so that's not any good as an energy source. The old Next Generation Tech Manual highlighted this by having the Enterprise carry an antimatter generator, but one that "cost" ten atoms of deuterium for every one anti-deuterium made. The real trick would be finding sources where it already exists and then containing it. Not unlike finding and using fossil fuels. Magnetic bottles have been devised for containment, as in the CERN experiment, but the real problem is that antimatter extinguishes itself when it comes in contact with matter, so where would you find it? To the consternation of cosmologists, our observable universe seems to be fairly unbalanced toward matter.

 

Yet there may be an exploitable source of antimatter. Hawking theorizes that black holes might be one. According to quantum theory, free energy will suddenly and randomly turn into opposite particles of matter and antimatter, which drift apart, then pull themselves back and annihilate each other, returning to the previous energy state. This is called a quantum fluxuation. If during this process, the matter particle fell into the event horizon of a black hole, we'd have an unpaired antimatter particle that could presumably be collected. But how often does this happen? How often could you capture the results? Would a collector expend so much energy just sitting near the edge of a black hole to make it a worthless exercise?

 

I know, who asked me to bring my wet blanket to the party? My point is, we're a long way from antimatter being a cheap fuel. Making it will never be a viable energy trade, although it might help spaceflight by being a lightweight, condensed form of fuel. But it would cost more to make it than you'd get out of it. Laws of thermodynamics and such. If you're looking for Earthbound alternate sources, go for fusion.

[Chirakis 1]

So, the Rihannsu have the answer, do they? Quantum singularities it is, then.

 

And the Terrans are doomed to be Earthbound for a few more generations. Excellent.

 

<On a more serious note, thank you for the engineer's perspective, Sorehl. It certainly bursts the Trek easy-answer bubble.>

[V'Roy 0]

But where does the energy for this explosion come from? Wouldn't the positive and negative energies cancel each out the way the positive and negative matter does?