Capture antimatter at CERN by 1,000 seconds record time

Thousand seconds, that's more than fifteen minutes -16 minutes and 40 seconds, to be precise-and it is time that could contain stable antihydrogen atoms , about 10,000 times the maximum time before the scientists could keep the antimatter before it disappeared on contact with other particles.

This was accomplished by the team working on the ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus), one of several projects that are at the CERN and is responsible for all studies concerning the antihydrogen, the simplest antimatter molecule.

The antihydrogen is the antiparticle of hydrogen and probably sounds logical guess before I say-and you get to merge its two components: antiprotons and positrons. The big problem is that these antihydrogen atoms have no electrical charge and these are close to the walls of the "trap" which should be confined. Since this trap is made ​​of ordinary matter, not the least common of antimatter - the contact causes the particles to eliminate each other a few milliseconds of creation. Or even so had been previous experiments.

These results were repeated again and again, the antimatter magnetic trap used in the experiment, to be made of materials only allows the existence of these clouds of antiparticles for very short periods of time, around 170 milliseconds for the experiments out last year. This time frame allows them to verify that there was antimatter caught, but does not allow this to be studied thoroughly.

How then did the guys at CERN in order to keep the precious antimatter more than 16 minutes? Surprisingly it was a relatively simple method, to reduce the temperature of the antiprotons used in the experiment to very low levels, this meant that the energy inside the magnetic trap antimatter were reduced dramatically.

What benefits might have to keep the antimatter more time with us? Well, this entry would give scientists a better chance to study their behavior and thus, perhaps, address some of the most fundamental questions of the universe. For example, it is unclear how gravity affects the particles of antimatter, is an open question whether this will be attracted by the Earth's gravitational capo or be repelled by this . Having the opportunity to manipulate and study longer may help to resolve this and many other mysteries.

It's amazing how things that years ago were only assumptions in the minds of a few starts to be studied practical. Have you ever would have thought that Dirac predicted antimatter in the famous equation could be created on Earth?

Capture antimatter at CERN by the record time of 1000 seconds written on ALT1040 on 4 May, 2011 zapata131
Send to Twitter | Share on Facebook