Underground Lab To Probe Ratio of Matter To Antimatter

Wired reports on the Enriched Xenon Observatory 200, a particle detector scientists hope will answer the question of why there is significantly more matter than antimatter in the universe. Quoting: "The new detector will try to fill in the picture, determining basic features of [neutrinos], like their mass and whether or not they, unlike almost all other particles, are their own antiparticles. That quirk is why some scientists believe neutrinos could be the mechanism for the creation of our matter-filled universe. Almost all other particles have an antiparticle twin that, if it comes into contact with the particle, immediately annihilates it. But if neutrinos are their own antiparticles they could conceivably be knocked onto matter's 'team,' thereby causing the cascading win for matter over antimatter that we know occurred. As the Indian theoretical physicist G. Rajasekaran put it in a speech [PDF] earlier this year, neutrinos that are their own antiparticles would explain 'how, after [the] annihilation of most of the particles with antiparticles, a finite but small residue of particles was left to make up the present Universe.'"

Comments

Not enough energy to create anti-matter

[lpq]

If E=Mc^2, then wouldn't -M*c^2=-E?.

So in any localized area where there was more anti-matter, the negative energy produced from anti-matter conversions would annihilate any positive energy around, but if there is no energy around, the anti-energy wouldn't be able to exist in our universe. Only as positive energy could it remain in existence -- but positive energy can only inter-exchange with matter -- not anti-matter. Thus after all the matter and antimatter combined, some of the anti-energy would have disappeared/exited from our universe leaving only positive energy and positive matter. ...or something like that...:-)