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CERN Antimatter Experiment Produces First Beam of Antihydrogen

An anonymous reader writes "Matter and antimatter annihilate immediately when they meet, so aside from creating antihydrogen, one of the key challenges for physicists is to keep antiatoms away from ordinary matter. To do so, experiments take advantage of antihydrogen's magnetic properties (which are similar to hydrogen's) and use very strong non-uniform magnetic fields to trap antiatoms long enough to study them. However, the strong magnetic field gradients degrade the spectroscopic properties of the (anti)atoms. To allow for clean high-resolution spectroscopy, the ASACUSA collaboration developed an innovative set-up to transfer antihydrogen atoms to a region where they can be studied in flight, far from the strong magnetic field (scientific paper)."

136 comments

  1. Will this open Stein;s Gate? by danbuter · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I hope not. A future controlled by CERN is terrifying.

    1. Re:Will this open Stein;s Gate? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      Don't worry, she can't take much more of this anyway.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:Will this open Stein;s Gate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's happening. El Psy Kongroo

    3. Re:Will this open Stein;s Gate? by metlin · · Score: 1

      Steins;Gate bro.

    4. Re:Will this open Stein;s Gate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but I hear they used to play a lot of Baldur's Gate at CERN, though.

    5. Re:Will this open Stein;s Gate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Odd that this was modded "Flamebait" (it's a reference to Steins;Gate, a game made into an animated series recently)

      And it's probably because he got the name wrong: it's SERN, not CERN

  2. First! by nomorecwrd · · Score: 1

    Anti-hydrogen weapon?

    1. Re:First! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      'Weapons that don't work if there is matter between you and the target' are probably kind of a niche at present...

    2. Re:First! by martyb · · Score: 5, Funny

      Anti-hydrogen weapon?

      'Weapons that don't work if there is matter between you and the target' are probably kind of a niche at present...

      So, basically, if an enemy got hold of this, it wouldn't matter? ;)

    3. Re:First! by nomorecwrd · · Score: 1

      mmm... yeah, more like some sort of satellite to satellite weapon maybe.
      What are the chances of hitting space debris of some sort?

      Hold that thought... Can we use this thing to clean the orbit or the path before, let's say the ISS?

    4. Re:First! by rlwhite · · Score: 1

      The solar wind might not be all that dense, but I still wouldn't chance the antimatter finding a random ion too close to the launcher.

    5. Re:First! by danlip · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The annihilation of a single hydrogen atom probably isn't going to hurt much, it's not that much energy.

    6. Re:First! by CODiNE · · Score: 2

      Just shoot it behind a powerful laser blast.

      --
      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    7. Re:First! by MarkRose · · Score: 1

      One could say It matters so little it antimatters.

      --
      Be relentless!
    8. Re:First! by cheesybagel · · Score: 2

      Precisely. Something in front to cleanup the matter along the way, then the anti-hydrogen. But its probably easier to fire positrons.

    9. Re:First! by OneAhead · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Parent and GP's suggestions might work in SF, but in real physics, a powerful laser blast will just break the ordinary matter into smaller pieces, which will still be sitting in the way. As for the positrons, they won't quite annihilate the ordinary matter; some of them would annihilate with electrons, but most of them would convert neutrons into protons, if I remember the nuclear chemistry chapters of my bachelor's courses correctly. The resulting unstable cores would either decay or fission, but the products would still be ordinary matter, and no matter (pun not intended) how long you keep repeating this, there would still be a lot of ordinary matter left that cannot be converted to energy any further by bombarding with positrons.

    10. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just shoot it behind a powerful laser blast.

      Someone get the sharks!

    11. Re:First! by fisted · · Score: 0

      [...] the nuclear chemistry chapters [...]

      It's spelled Nucular.

    12. Re:First! by OneAhead · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here's a serious answer, just in case you're not going along with the joking tone of the 2 posts I replied to...

      I thought we were (implicitly) talking about the presence of air making terrestrial use of the weapon impossible. Particles coming loose tend to fly around at high speeds is somewhat random directions. Some of them will remain in the way of the antimatter projectile/beam, some of them will go out of the way but hit a molecule and return where they came from, some of them will create some backscatter effect (like a billiard ball being launched at high speed on a pool table full of other balls), causing molecules of air to get into the way. Even if one could fire a hypothetical ray that clearly annihilates all matter ahead of an antimatter projectile/beam, air would quickly rush into the vacuum being created (of course, having such a ray at one's disposal would mostly remove the point of using an antimatter projectile/beam). Whatever happens, there won't be the necessary hard vacuum for the antimatter projectile/beam to proceed. Even air at very low density would exert an incredibly strong braking/beam dispersal force because of the energy released when it collides with antimatter.

      Also, in the present discussion, gravity is far too weak a force to be relevant at all. If you have to wait for gravity to remove stuff out of the way, air will have been given time to take that stuff's place a hundred times over. That's why there's no hard vacuum behind objects in (subsonic) free fall. Now in space, there is no air, but little gravity either...

    13. Re:First! by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      The solar wind might not be all that dense, but I still wouldn't chance the antimatter finding a random ion too close to the launcher.

      Depending on the altitude, there's more up there than just the solar wind. The escaped particles from the ionosphere, for one.

      Much of the space environment around the earth (in fact in the whole universe) contains plasma at varying densities. Whether an antimatter beam could travel very far in earth orbit would depend on its flux and the ambient mean-free path for the antimatter particles in question. I'm not sure what the numbers would be for antimatter, but some quick Googling reveals that non-exotic matter typically has a mean-free path on the order of 1 m in low earth orbit, 1 AU in interplanetary space, and potentially thousands of light-years in interstellar space.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    14. Re:First! by TrollstonButterbeans · · Score: 1

      Jokingly, every blackhole could be composed solely of antimatter and the universe would be no different. Except, well, actually this statement is true --- every blackhole could be exclusively made of antimatter, because beyond the event horizon the contents of a blackhole cannot interact with the rest of the universe except gravitationally.

      --
      Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
    15. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Conversely:
      The splitting of a single atom probably isn't going to hurt much, it's not that much energy.

    16. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds a lot like EMP weapons. Great in theory but in practice it is easier to knock out electronics with regular bombs.

    17. Re:First! by kyrsjo · · Score: 1

      That would maybe clear out the most of the electrons (as done in laser plasma wakefield acceleration), but leave the ions behind.

    18. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please tell me you are joking...Why is this modded a 2?

    19. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the perfect space weapon. You could use it to destroy enemy satellites without encasing the Earth in a debris field.

    20. Re:First! by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      In that case just make it a bomb and store the anti-matter inside it.

    21. Re:First! by OneAhead · · Score: 1

      In light of previous conversations with GP, I'm almost certain it's a joke, and/or he or she is testing my sense of humor. As for the moderation, it hasn't been modded at all, as you can see by clicking on the score. If you create an account, your posts automatically start at +1. If you make a significant numbers of interesting/informative/insightful comments and very few troll/flamebait comments, you automatically accumulate "karma", and if your karma is high enough, you get an additional +1 on top of that. So that's why it's at +2. Given that it's a joke, but not a hilariously funny one, the mods are not likely to spend their limited mod points on it either way, so it stays at +2.

      For completeness, low karma can also cause a -1 karma modifier. That's why career trolls rarely bother to make an account, and that in turn is why ACs are held in low respect.

    22. Re:First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, if you have a powerful laser to clear out the matter between you and the target, you might as well just shoot the target with the powerful laser...

    23. Re:First! by fisted · · Score: 1

      more a quote rather than a joke, i obviously overestimated how widely known it is.
      for the record

  3. Pure Anti-Hydrogen? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2, Funny

    That is only one ionization away from something potentially very dangerous.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:Pure Anti-Hydrogen? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      Mmmmm... Bugles.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  4. SW:EP4 "Stand By..." by tedgyz · · Score: 2

    This is eerily similar to the famous Death Star scene in Episode IV. You can even imagine the control panel and sounds are not too different.

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
    1. Re:SW:EP4 "Stand By..." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is eerily similar to the famous Death Star scene in Episode IV. You can even imagine the control panel and sounds are not too different.

      Similar in the same sense that a grain of sand and the Sun are similar in size.

  5. I"m working on anti-oxygen by bob_super · · Score: 1

    The party potential of anti-H2O is just too great.

    1. Re:I"m working on anti-oxygen by JustOK · · Score: 1

      do you KNOW how dangerous anti - dihydrous monoxide IS?!?!

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    2. Re:I"m working on anti-oxygen by bunratty · · Score: 4, Funny

      There are no known reports of fatalities due to it, and there are no regulations against its use, so I conclude it must be perfectly safe!

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    3. Re:I"m working on anti-oxygen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it's safe --- if it's the opposite of extremely dangerous dihydrogen monoxide, a few milliliters in your lungs should provide immortality.

    4. Re:I"m working on anti-oxygen by narcc · · Score: 2

      That's where you're wrong. It's completely unregulated and has not been evaluated by the FDA. We need to protect our children from this at all cost.

    5. Re:I"m working on anti-oxygen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You ate chili beans?

  6. I'm waiting for anti-helium. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I want anti-helium so I can inhale and talk LOWER.

    1. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want anti-helium so you can be annihilated trying.

    2. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sulphur Hexafluoride already does this.

    3. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      I know this is a "funny"-because-I'm-intentionally-misunderstanding-science post, but sulfur hexafloride will totally help.

    4. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Note that it can settle in the lungs, if you inhale too much and can't exhale it you can suffocate. You won't feel it either because the CO2 will rise and exit the lungs. If you experiment with breathing it in, stand on your head after a few seconds and breathe out/in deeply.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    5. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe just Nitrous Oxide.

    6. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Note that it can settle in the lungs, if you inhale too much and can't exhale it you can suffocate. You won't feel it either because the CO2 will rise and exit the lungs. If you experiment with breathing it in, stand on your head after a few seconds and breathe out/in deeply.

      Sounds like a cue for the 'feel yourself breathing' copypasta.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    7. Re:I'm waiting for anti-helium. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Just do it in Australia

  7. any form of combustion results in..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    something less useful? what could be more less useful than firing all of our guns at once & exploding into space?

    1. Re:any form of combustion results in..... by GarethIwanFairclough · · Score: 1

      something less useful? what could be more less useful than firing all of our guns at once & exploding into space?

      Who doesn't like heavy metal thunder?

    2. Re:any form of combustion results in..... by Meyaht · · Score: 1

      or racin with the wind...?

      --
      I believe in karma, which is why, when I do something bad to people, I assume they deserve it.
  8. Typical egg-heads, over thinking by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    This may be a case where the experts are too close to the problem to see the simple solution.

    Put the antihydrogen in a container made of antimatter, then annihilation will not be an issue.

    Perhaps some sort of rigid anti-dirigible

    1. Re:Typical egg-heads, over thinking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, the anti-Huge Manatee!

    2. Re:Typical egg-heads, over thinking by pushing-robot · · Score: 1

      Good idea. I'll call anti-Hitler; he's always eager to help.

      --
      How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
    3. Re:Typical egg-heads, over thinking by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Put the antihydrogen in a container made of antimatter, then annihilation will not be an issue

      Only if the container is held by an antiperson; i.e. a politician.

  9. Anti-hydrogen? WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And what, pray tell, is wrong with hydrogen? Without it you can't have water and life itself would be impossible.

    I for one, am VERY pro-hydrogen!

  10. News for nerds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stuff that anti-matters.

    1. Re:News for nerds... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Stuff that anti-matters.

      You mean "dash" "Slash" "dot" right? Chroot jail for you!

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  11. carbon monoxide.. hot air by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    like we don't have enough of that already too? are we daft or just ordinary hostages..

  12. the stuff life is unmade from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    perfect balance requires a lot of free space

  13. this is great news! by Tumbleweed · · Score: 1

    The first step towards the inevitable anti-Hydrogen Economy, yay!

  14. Cool science coming... by MetricT · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.0847

    One of the most interesting physics papers I've read in recent years. Does away with dark matter by presuming that antimatter has the opposite gravitational sign as matter (which pops out very naturally once you apply CPT to general relativity).

    As the electromagnetic force is almost 10^40 times stronger than gravity, it would be virtually impossible to test with anti-protons or positrons. But with electrically neutral anti-hydrogen, it becomes potentially testable.

    1. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Classical Physics Theories?
      Committee for the Prevention of Torture?
      Current Procedural Terminology?
      (Urban Dictionary Warning) Colored People Time?

    2. Re:Cool science coming... by Mashdar · · Score: 3, Informative

      Do you mean does away with dark energy? Because dark matter is supposed to have positive mass, so I don't see how adding negative mass would remove the need for it?

    3. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    4. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Antimatter does not have negative mass. I don't understand where your "negative mass" is coming from.

    5. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Me neither. Things are often helped if people even just read the abstract they're talking about.

      "Assuming that a particle and its antiparticle have the gravitational charge of the opposite sign, the physical vacuum may be considered as a fluid of virtual gravitational dipoles. Following this hypothesis, we present the first indications that dark matter may not exist and that the phenomena for which it was invoked might be explained by the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum by the known baryonic matter."

      Gravitational charge of the opposite sign is not the same as negative mass, no more than an electron or a proton make antiprotons because they've got opposite charge.

    6. Re:Cool science coming... by CanEHdian · · Score: 1

      I don't understand where your "negative mass" is coming from.

      Another one that never watched ST:TAS... from Memory Alpha's description of Beyond the Farthest Star:

      En route to investigate, the Enterprise suddenly experiences severe hypergravitational effects from Questar M-17's negative star mass.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    7. Re:Cool science coming... by smaddox · · Score: 1

      Polarized gravitation would also make some forms of man-made time travel possible, which would be quite interesting. It would be very revolutionary if antimatter turned out to have opposite gravitational sign. Unfortunately, we're probably still several years from knowing. Still exciting, though.

    8. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the paper yourself. What they are calling "gravitational charge" is defined on the second page as being gravitational mass, and that antimatter would repel matter with a negative gravitational mass. Or you could just look at the abstract, since the whole idea of it being a gravitational dipole implies it is doing the opposite gravitationally as matter. That doesn't help with a deficit of mass in a system, and could make it worse depending on how much antimatter is around.

    9. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are mistaken. Antimatter cannot have the opposite gravitational sign as matter in general relativity. If it did, it would be possible to distinguish between an experiment performed in a gravitational field (e.g. standing on earth, antimatter released in a vacuum chamber would "float up") and an experiment performed in an accelerating rocket (e.g. antimatter released in a vacuum chamber would be "left behind" and would "fall down").

      You may be familiar with the fact that light is affected by gravitation, despite the fact that photons have zero rest mass and the photon is its own antiparticle. This is reflected in the gravitational bending of starlight. You may be less familiar with the fact that photons themselves gravitate – for instance, a reflective box full of photons has a stronger gravitational field than a reflective box containing no photons. The conclusion I'd like for you to draw from this thought experiment is that positive energy gravitates positively – even in the complete absence of matter.

      When an electron and an anti-electron annihilate into two gamma rays (photons), it is obvious that a positive amount of energy is released. Since energy is conserved, that means that a positive amount of energy went into the annihilation. If, as you claim, antimatter anti-gravitates, then it would have to have negative energy (since we already observed with photons that positive energy gravitates positively). Since a particle and its antiparticle have identical masses, the magnitude of their rest energies are the same (via the famous formula E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2, which you may have seen before in simplified form). So if antimatter anti-gravitates, then the anti-electron has equal negative energy to the positive energy of the electron, and the net energy going into the reaction is *zero*. Then the net energy coming out of the reaction is zero, and hence gamma rays are not produced. Since this is in direct contradiction with experimental observation, we can conclude that in fact anti-matter does not anti-gravitate.

    10. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While if I had to place a bet, I would bet that antimatter and matter experience the same gravitational force in both direction and magnitude, I think your reasoning why they must experience the same direction of force is weak. You're first paragraph basically says that it would violate the axiom that GR is based on, which by itself is no basis to necessarily throw it out. While the predictions of GR are mostly pretty well tested, that particular axiom is not and it could be possible that the equivalence principle doesn't hold for antimatter without invalidating the tested predictions of GR. It is also possible to maintain conservation of energy on a basic level by having both matter and antimatter having positive energy, but still opposite gravitational masses. You would have a messed up situation where a box with a positron and electron in it would have a different gravitational mass than if they were to annihilate (leading to a potential violation of conservation of energy by a third object interacting through gravity with the annihilating pair), but it could still be possible that nature is that messed up. While I would hope such things don't come up as it would make a mess of the math, and the cosmological constant is much simpler than something that would require GR being replaced with a likely less elegant newer theory, reality doesn't care how easy it makes predictive theories.

    11. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read the paper yourself.

      Please do. The paper itself claims an alternative to dark MATTER, not dark energy. There is no proposal for negative baryonic mass, since we already know that an antiparticle has a measurable, positive mass.

      What they are calling "gravitational charge" is defined on the second page as being gravitational mass, and that antimatter would repel matter with a negative gravitational mass. Or you could just look at the abstract, since the whole idea of it being a gravitational dipole implies it is doing the opposite gravitationally as matter.

      But it does not follow that "doing the opposite gravitationally" means that it has negative BARYONIC mass.

      That doesn't help with a deficit of mass in a system

      Keep reading. There is no claim for negative baryonic mass. There is a claim that there IS NO deficit of mass, and instead that the observed gravitational force is a result of the interaction of two different charges of gravity, only one of which is generally observed given the lack of substantial antimatter in our local environment.

      Fundamentally, it boils down to a theory that we don't understand gravity fully because we can only easily observe one kind of it, and that our approach of explaining the greater gravity of the universe by saying there's a ton of invisible mass out there is not the only explanation.

    12. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If, as you claim, antimatter anti-gravitates, then it would have to have negative energy (since we already observed with photons that positive energy gravitates positively).

      An assumption that is not supported. It is far from given that "anti-gravitation" has negative energy, since it is a phenomenon we have not observed. We have only been able to demonstrate that the gravitational mass of antimatter is less than roughly 100 times its inertial mass and that, if antimatter anti-gravitates, that it does so at no more than about 65 times its inertial mass. That leaves plenty of space for positive energy and anti-gravitation.

      The other piece you are missing is scale. We already know that particles behave differently based on temperature, density, structure, and many other variables. The question is whether what we have experimentally observed to be the case in localized reactions (which we can perform only on a very small laboratory scale) holds true on a galactic scale.

    13. Re:Cool science coming... by ppanon · · Score: 1

      I have been wondering how this would affect black hole evaporation through Hawking radiation. If it invalidates it, then we might want to be extra careful in the future about risking creating quantum black holes.

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
    14. Re:Cool science coming... by dkf · · Score: 2

      You are mistaken. Antimatter cannot have the opposite gravitational sign as matter in general relativity. If it did, it would be possible to distinguish between an experiment performed in a gravitational field (e.g. standing on earth, antimatter released in a vacuum chamber would "float up") and an experiment performed in an accelerating rocket (e.g. antimatter released in a vacuum chamber would be "left behind" and would "fall down").

      It's an assumption that that is true, not a proven thing. We don't know if the gravitational mass of antimatter has the same sign as the inertial mass of antimatter, nor do we know why those two quantities have the same sign (and value) as each other in normal matter. Accumulating enough cold antimatter to be able to measure gravitational effects at all is hard, as is explained elsewhere on this thread. Without the experimental evidence, no amount of armchair theorising is going to be truly sound.

      --
      "Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
    15. Re:Cool science coming... by HybridST · · Score: 1

      First off IANAP.
      To throw some variables out there:

      As I understand it the conjecture under review is:
      M(rest)=M(grav)=M(inertia)

      Implicit from Einsteins field equations,
      R_mu_nu - (1/2)g_mu_nu*R + g_mu_nu*GAMMA = (8pi*G/c^4)*T_mu_nu

      somewhat like the next layer beyond E^2=m^4c^4+p^2c^2 (lorentz invarient form iirc?)

      I wont see it in my University courses for a few years but from online lectures and pdfs i have a bare understanding of the implications if the conjecture is false:
      1. The dark matter problem 'could' go away if the conjecture is found to be false. Not too likely imo

      2 If the different masses are NOT equivalent then here there be dragons! i.e. new interesting physics underneath-perheps leading to new propulsion systems.

      I'm sure someone will pipe up and correct me if i'm wrong enough.

      --
      Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
    16. Re:Cool science coming... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      IANAP, but there's a few things that occur to me.

      First, the impression I get is that they're hypothesizing that matter attracts matter, anti-matter attracts anti-matter, and matter and anti-matter mutually repel. We know that the first is true, the second is not testable until we can get enough anti-matter in one place to measure gravitational effects, and the third might be testable. Can we create a beam of positrons that's sufficiently slow, or travels sufficiently far, that we could measure its displacement due to Earth's gravity?

      Second, as I understand it gravity isn't so much a force as a warping, so things just go straight in a curved spacetime. That would imply that anything would follow the same geodesic in the warped spacetime around Earth, meaning Earth would apparently attract anti-matter. If matter attracts itself and anti-matter repels itself, that would seem to be a significant and unexpected asymmetry between the two. If matter attracts everything and anti-matter repels matter and attracts anti-matter, then we have not only a real asymmetry but a perpetual-motion machine.

      Third, does it account for all dark matter-related phenomena? Dark matter was first discussed because of it looked like gravity wasn't working as expected within galaxies, but it has turned out to be a useful hypothesis in other ways. Would this new gravitational theory account for the Bullet Cluster?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    17. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would it affect Hawking radiation, let alone invalidate it?

    18. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're the one talking about baryonic mass, while the start of this thread was clearly talking about gravitational mass, in the sense that dark matter as a form of matter involves gravitational attraction. The paper also quite clearly is saying that antimatter would have the opposite gravitational field around it considering it is talking about dipoles and opposite gravitational mass. The correct response to the person earlier in the thread is that yes, they are correct that dark matter could not be explained as just being antimatter in such a theory, because antimatter would not behave gravitationally as dark matter should, but that is not what the theory is doing, instead showing that the polarization caused by virtual pairs can make it look like there is matter some place there is not. Baryionic mass is irrelevant to that issue.

    19. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're the one talking about baryonic mass, while the start of this thread was clearly talking about gravitational mass

      That poster is clearly conflating gravitational mass, inertial mass, and baryonic mass because for the nth time, there is no NEGATIVE mass being proposed anywhere at all. Just like gravitational redshift does not mean that the baryonic or inertial mass of a body is decreased, despite the decrease in gravitational mass, the concept of polar charges for gravity itself does not imply a loss of mass in the system. At most, it implies that our estimate of missing baryonic mass (i.e., "dark matter") is grossly miscalculated in the first place.

      The correct response to the person earlier in the thread is that yes, they are correct that dark matter could not be explained as just being antimatter in such a theory

      A theory obviating the existence of dark matter is fundamentally incompatible with the need to explain how dark matter gets its mass. The very premise is flawed because it assumes that there is actually a large quantity of unaccounted mass, and then wrongly interprets the claim to indicate that this paper proposes a measure of negative mass in the first place.

    20. Re:Cool science coming... by ppanon · · Score: 1

      Well, it would if the "metaphor" I had heard about how Hawking radiation works were correct, but apparently it isn't. While I won't say the explanation in the linked page makes sense to me (I probably couldn't follow the math anymore even if it was included), I must admit I had some similar concerns as Mr. Kujareevanich regarding that metaphor. If a gravitational well did result in the polarization of the gravitational dipole, then it would seem that perhaps it might affect the results. However if Hawking radiation is just an apparent effect, like blue/red-shifting or Lorentz contraction at relativistic speeds, then it presumably wouldn't be affected.

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
    21. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there is no NEGATIVE mass being proposed anywhere at all

      Yes, they are proposing negative gravitational mass. You're trying to insist that mass can only refer to inertial or baryonic mass, or some sort of mix up of them. Despite the paper (and even you at times) calling it negative gravitational mass, you some how then assume that there is "no negative mass" as if mass refers to only one of those. While you're busy equivocating the unqualified term ,the original poster's question could have made a lot more sense if the unqualified term was interpreted as gravitational mass, which then would have been correct to say it is negative in regards to the paper and that they were correct that antimatter would not be a replacement for dark matter as they were misreading the paper.

      A theory obviating the existence of dark matter is fundamentally incompatible with the need to explain how dark matter gets its mass

      Which is exactly what the latter half of the sentence said that you left out of the quote. You seem to be lacking in reading comprehension in regards to several posts and the paper itself.

    22. Re:Cool science coming... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, they are proposing negative gravitational mass

      They're proposing a negative direction of the vector, not a negative magnitude. This is not true "negative mass" as theorized by others--it's instead similar to the negative pressure dynamics of the Casimir effect.

      While you're busy equivocating the unqualified term ,the original poster's question could have made a lot more sense if the unqualified term was interpreted as gravitational mass

      Not really, because such a scenario would not implicate "dark energy" at all and still would not explain how he arrived at the conclusion that someone was proposing taking mass out of the system.

      Which is exactly what the latter half of the sentence said that you left out of the quote.

      The two halves are fundamentally opposed. Your offer of a "correct response" that "yes, they are correct that dark matter could not be explained as just being antimatter in such a theory" is mistaken.

      The poster is incorrect about what the theory proposes, and ALSO incorrect about the consequence of his mistaken interpretation, even assuming it was a correct interpretation.

      You seem to be lacking in reading comprehension in regards to several posts and the paper itself.

      Whatever makes you feel better.

  15. AntiHydrogen ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can I use it in my Anti-Zeppelin? How about my Anti-Hydrogen Vehicle?

    1. Re:AntiHydrogen ! by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Can I use it in my Anti-Zeppelin?

      That would be a Led Zeppelin (kinda like a lead balloon...you can look it up).

    2. Re:AntiHydrogen ! by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      I thought a Led Zeppelin was more like a New Yardbird...

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    3. Re:AntiHydrogen ! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Anti-Zeppelin sings "Stairway to Hell"

  16. Re: [Ignorance] by Jmac217 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    You may like cowering behind your monitor, sitting in your own filth of chip crumbs, and typing with your sticky fingers; but you're the argument against anonymity on the internet.

  17. Re: [Ignorance] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Says the guy who uses a handle called "Jmac217".

  18. like fertilizer plants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    everyone is happy (except for the smell) until it explodes...

  19. Star Trek technology coming true. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "To allow for clean high-resolution spectroscopy, the ASACUSA collaboration developed an innovative set-up to transfer antihydrogen atoms to a region where they can be studied in flight, far from the strong magnetic field (scientific paper)."

    Let me guess. It involves the use of Dilithium crystals.

  20. ELIAAHM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay, so what exactly happens when matter and anti-matter "annihilate?" Do they get changed into energy? Do they just "disappear" from the universe? Where does the mass go? Explain it like I'm an an Art History major.

    1. Re:ELIAAHM by makotech222 · · Score: 2

      100% of the mass turns into energy, so anti hydrogen + hydrogen = 2mc^2 joules, IIRC.

    2. Re:ELIAAHM by makotech222 · · Score: 2

      Oh, and IIRC, two photons are produced as the carriers of the energy, in opposite directions to conserve momentum.

    3. Re:ELIAAHM by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

      Doesn't the anti-hydrogen have negative mass, so the combined mass of the hydrogen and anti-hydrogen would be 0? I understand that two photons are created, but I'm not quite sure where the energy comes from.

    4. Re:ELIAAHM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Antiparticles have the same mass as their particle counterparts. We haven't actually found anything with negative mass yet, and only have the hypothetical tachyon in that category.

    5. Re:ELIAAHM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even that isn't, strictly speaking, true. A tachyon might still have positive mass, just it would propagate (for whatever reason) along spacelike geodesics. GR doesn't really allow for negative (gravitational) mass, but it does allow for tachyons.

    6. Re:ELIAAHM by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

      Oh, I guess I need to do some more reading. I had the impression that anti-particles were basically the opposite of regular particles in every way.

    7. Re:ELIAAHM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nope. Quantum numbers are the opposite, but that's a more subtle thing, since there are particles -- including force carriers -- which are their own anti-particle (which immediately implies, for instance, that positrons and electrons are both influenced by magnetic fields in exactly the same way, just with opposite charge). Mass isn't a quantum number, but is rather... well, basically, a form of energy, so particles and their anti-particles have the same.

      (To entertain myself adding a layer of complication on top, super-symmetric partners of particles *do* have different mass and aren't anti-matter. Assuming they exist, which personally I suspect they don't.)

    8. Re:ELIAAHM by joe_frisch · · Score: 4, Informative

      They turn into "energy", but it may not be very straightforward. Electrons and anti-electrons (positrons) usually annihilate to a pair of gamma rays - about as close to "pure" energy as you can get.

      Anti protons and protons annihilate in a more ugly fashion since each is a bag of quarks. You can get pions that decay into neutrinos and muons which then decay into positrons and neutrinos. The muon decay is fairly slow - ~2 microseconds, enough for them to travel almost a kilometer.

      In the end you get gamma rays, neutrinos (of various types), electrons and positrons. The combined energy (both their mass energy and their kinetic energy) of all the particles adds up to the original mass energy of the matter and antimatter, and any other energy put into the process.

      Because protons and anti-protons are complex, it is very difficult to make anti-protons - only something like 1/100,000 collisions generates one, the rest just make pions and other junk. Then once you have the anti-protons its difficult to slow them down enough and cool them to where they will combine with the positrons. Is a very impressive and complicated experiment.

      BTW- it is not a path to any reasonable energy storage, the efficiency of making anti-protons is much too low. I don't know of any even design concepts that would have usable efficiency.

    9. Re:ELIAAHM by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      Antiparticles have the same mass as their particle counterparts. We haven't actually found anything with negative mass yet, and only have the hypothetical tachyon in that category.

      Tachyons don't have negative mass, they have imaginary mass (i.e. m^2 is negative).

    10. Re:ELIAAHM by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Can you put it into a biker gang analogy for me, Dr. Flytrap?

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    11. Re:ELIAAHM by joe_frisch · · Score: 2

      Sure. When a bunch of Mongols fight a bunch of Hell's Angles, no body mass is lost, some of the mass ends up as blood splatters, some as body parts. If motorcycles are used in the fight, the the total mass energy of the bike-bits will be the same as the starting mass energy.

      OK?

  21. Re: [Ignorance] by dale.furno · · Score: 1

    Problem?

  22. Re: [Ignorance] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only that the person pleading for an end to anonymity on the internet himself chooses to do his online activities in a way that is anonymous. I thought that would have been obvious.

  23. Real Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If 1) anti-matter is and can not be composed of matter
    and 2) electrons are matter
    and 3) magnetism is the interaction between electrons
    then:

    How can anti-matter be magnetic?

    1. Re:Real Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      1) is true
      2) is true
      3) is true... but incomplete, and slightly misunderstands the nature of electromagnetism

      electromagnetism is a force carried by photons between protons and electrons -- or between antiprotons and anti-electrons (which are also called positrons). since a photon is its own anti-particle, it's the same force. so we can use *electric* currents to generate magnetic fields that control positronic currents or the movement of charged antimatter.

      one way to view a positron is as an electron moving backwards in time. (literally. when feynman was doing his phd with wheeler they used this extensively.) given that, it's obvious that positrons have to be influenced by electromagnetism. it's just an electron in reverse going back around the spiral.

    2. Re:Real Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Electromagnetism is the interaction between particles with charge and electromagnetic fields. Quarks, electrons and some other particles have charge, so they can interact with magnetic fields, although some situations are more subtle than others. Even neutral atoms and neutrons can interact with electromagnetism because they have components that are charged.

  24. Re: [Ignorance] by Duhavid · · Score: 1

    Erasing moderation

    --
    emt 377 emt 4
  25. Cool by jd2112 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Can we combine antihydrogen with antioxygen and find out if antiwater is dry?

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    1. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IT BURNS IT BURNS

    2. Re:Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Antiwater would act just like water in the context of other antimolecules. Antiwater would explode if it came in contact with standard matter.
       
        I do not immediately see trolls.

    3. Re:Cool by celle · · Score: 1

      "Antiwater would explode if it came in contact with standard matter.

          I do not immediately see trolls."

                Then lets find some trolls and test that antiwater idea out.

  26. Re: [Ignorance] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Typed up by the tough guy behind his own monitor. Oh the irony...

  27. Re: [Ignorance] by Desler · · Score: 1

    Yeah, he rails against Internet anonymity and uses a pseudonym to post. He should make his post under his real name otherwise he's being a hypocrite.

  28. Set aside your differences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Anti-matter - can't we just get along? Can't we all just get along?" - Rodney King

  29. Don't envy me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know how to produce a beam of anti-anti-hydrogen.

  30. To boldly start going? by Pumpkin+Tuna · · Score: 1

    I think this is a good sign to go ahead and start building the Enterprise. Too early?

    1. Re:To boldly start going? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To boldy split infinitives... Wait.

  31. Re: [Ignorance] by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

    You can be against anonymous and in favor of pseudoanonymous without being a hypocrite.
    There is a huge difference between anonymous and pseudoanonymous.
    Pseudoanonymous allows users to be blocked, get a reputation either good or bad, and actually
    have a presence. It's been shown that people are even more true to their real self
    when using a pseudonym. That's completely different than the anonymous people that
    post stuff just to get a respond and would immediately be banned and/or ignored if they had
    a real account.

  32. Re: [Ignorance] by gmhowell · · Score: 1

    Yeah, he rails against Internet anonymity and uses a pseudonym to post. He should make his post under his real name otherwise he's being a hypocrite.

    Shouldn't you be chasing down a refurbed WWII battleship?

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  33. Human-centrism by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

    The annihilation of a single hydrogen atom probably isn't going to hurt much, it's not that much energy.

    I'm a proton, and it blew my electrons clean off, you insensitive clod! I had to move in with relatives to remain stable.

    1. Re:Human-centrism by gmclapp · · Score: 1

      No mod points.. :( lol'd at work though. Well done.

      --
      Common Sense (+1)
  34. Reply to comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Implying SERN is not CERN as pronounced by those who made S;G.

  35. Anti-rarematerial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe they should produce anti-gold or anti-platinum.

    Something that's not in the atmosphere.

    For example you fired a copper bullet and an anti copper bullet and targeted them together so that they touched infront of the target.

    Wouldn't that work?

    1. Re:Anti-rarematerial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Life isn't some low-brow sci-fi movie of the week where only exact atomic equivalents annihilate. Assuming you somehow managed to make anti-copper without an antimatter stellar supernova, the positrons of your anti-copper bullet and the electrons in any ambient matter would annihilate first, generating so much energy that the anti-copper nuclei would likely burst apart, colliding with the (now naked/ionized) nuclei of any nearby matter atoms and also annihilate at the quark level. On the bright side, the explosive yield would probably only be around 1 megaton TNT equivalent, so not an extinction level event.

  36. Re: [Ignorance] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah but the person who replied was stating that the user was "cowering behind [their] monitor" basically stating that the user doesn't have to worry about real world repercussions for what he was doing online, heavily implying that users ought to be forced to identify themselves personally, something that Jmac217 isn't doing himself.

    Reputation, karma, and etc. for pseudonymous accounts such as your own and the person replying do solve some of the problems of online communities but they would not have made a difference for anyone who gets easily offended like Jmac217. He would still be allowed to post or able to create new accounts with neutral karma.

    The real problem here is that people get worked up about trolls rather than just ignoring them. Trolls work because people feed attention to them. People like Jmac217 are more of a problem than the trolls themselves are.

  37. Future Darwin-award, waiting to happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...some hick will get some, an put in his hydrogen-pickup.

  38. And for those who care by azav · · Score: 1

    From:
    http://physics.aps.org/article...
    Published March 25, 2013 | Physics 6, 36 (2013) | DOI: 10.1103/Physics.6.36

      One symmetry that has so far avoided any signs of breaking is the so-called CPT symmetry, which equates matter and antimatter at a fundamental level.

    With this data analysis technique, they determined the antiproton’s magnetic moment to be pN=2.792845(12), which has equal magnitude, within experimental uncertainty, to the NIST CODATA recommended value for the proton magnetic moment of pN=2.792847356(23). Thus the magnitude of the antiproton and proton magnetic moments differ by less than 5 parts per million, in agreement with the CPT theorem.

    If CPT violation did occur it would forever alter our understanding of the universe—or lack thereof! History has taught us that experiments such as this one play an important role in shoring up, or changing, the foundations of physics. So for now, the debate will go on.

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...