Anti-Matter Created By Laser At Livermore

zootropole alerts us to a press release issued today by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announcing the production of 'billions of particles of anti-matter.' "Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma 'jet.' This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts." The press release doesn't characterize the laser used in this experiment, but it may have been this one.

Comments

Re:Holy Mackerel!

[FlyByPC]

Even more interesting is the possibility for mass manufacture of antimatter. By using mass-produced gold targets, you could rotate the materials in and out of the machine every few seconds, creating previously unseen amounts of antimatter.

If true, this is the 1940s all over again -- only on a larger scale. A thimbleful of antimatter would make any H-bomb look like a popgun. (...and yeah, I know we're not yet talking about anywhere near that order of magnitude. Yet.) It would certainly help with space exploration -- but we humans can't even be completely trusted with gunpowder and jet airplanes yet. *sigh*

Re:Holy Mackerel!

[AKAImBatman]

Why is everyone so hung up on an energy-positive reaction? Antimatter is the ultimate in fuel for space-propulsion as it produces the highest theoretical amount of energy for the least possible mass. (i.e. 100% conversion - losses to nuetrinos that cannot be captured) This plays well into the rocket formula, giving antimatter drives a specific impulse unattainable with other rocket methodologies. In fact, the far-flung future may see c-ships traveling the stars based on matter-antimatter drives.

What I want verified is not if this process is energy efficient or not. I want to know if this process is several orders of magnitude more efficient than the current Fermilab and CERN processes.

Sure, you could use the antimatter to fuel some other reaction as you suggested, but then again we already have fission reactors which produce net positive energy.

Once again, antimatter catalyzation makes the fuel more efficient for its weight and thus plays well into the rocket formula.

Re:Holy Mackerel!

[AKAImBatman]

If true, this is the 1940s all over again -- only on a larger scale

Not really. We've already done the whole Cold War/Mutually Assured Destruction thing. Our weapons are already far, far larger than we could ever deploy here on Earth. Making them that much bigger only makes them that much more useless. At best, the only real advantage would be that they could be scaled down.

Until we start looking at warfare on an interplanetary or interstellar scale, our existing nukes and possible antimatter warheads are going to sit in their silos and go unused. Or in the case of antimatter bombs, I simply hope they're not built. The idea of a large-scale antimatter warhead being prevented from detonation by mere magnetic fields maintained by the nearest power plant is not an appealing idea. Just disrupt the power infrastructure for long enough and we'll blow ourselves to kingdom come. :-/

Quick question for anyone with the knowledge

[Hojima]

Does anyone know if this might someday lead to antimatter plants? From a special on discovery, I heard that antimatter has a 100% mass to energy conversion, and uranium/plutonium is very expensive to enrich, so using gold for energy wouldn't be too impractical. This would be very exciting research if it does mean cheap energy at that scale with no pollution.

Re:Quick question for anyone with the knowledge

[nebaz]

No. While antimatter may have a 100% mass to energy conversion, it takes more energy to create it than it gives off.

Re:Quick question for anyone with the knowledge

[ultranova]

You can't generate a net positive energy source with antimatter.

Make hydrogen containers with very thin gold walls - or more likely frozen pellets coated with gold. Bombard the gold with a laser, turning the surface layer into antimatter. Antimatter annihilates with the matter below it and creates an explosion, which heats and compresses the hydrogen, igniting a fusion reaction.

It is, essentially, the equivalent of a fission-initiated fusion, which is proven to work and work well. The difference is that there's no lower bound to the size of an antimatter explosion - even a single electron and positron annihilate - so you can make the explosion be of suitable size for a power plant. And of course annihilation, as the name implies, doesn't leave behind radioactive materials, just gamma rays.

Besides, Laser Antimatter Fusion is pretty much the epitome of cool ;).

Re:Quick question for anyone with the knowledge

[sdpuppy]

Yes, this experiment accomplished - converting energy into antimatter

The point is having the ability to produce lots of these particles in a directed manner, capture and store them for further study.

Previously the main source for antimatter was certain types of radioactive decay and nuclear reactions.

(example: if you go to the hospital for PET imaging - they inject you with radioactive material that decays by emitting anti-electrons = positrons)

If you want something that could potentially produce energy, this is not it - although in studying the process and the particles we might eventually learn how to produce antimatter more efficiently (to store energy) or perhaps even with net gain by inducing some sort of nuclear reaction.

Re:Holy Mackerel!

[JohnFluxx]

Time dilation and distance contraction. This are special relativity effects.

For the people on earth, the ship takes 4 million years to travel 4 million light years at close to the speed of light. But for people in the rocket, it can be a very short amount of time.