Antimatter is really meaningful

The European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) recently published its successful journal Nature in 'confinement' of hydrogen antimatter. How important is this?

In 1930, British physicist Paul Dirac while trying to reconcile ideas of quantum physics and Albert Einstein 's general theory of relativity predetermined the existence of antimatter.

His equations show that the electron must have a compatible particle with the same mass but bearing the opposite charge and moment. Two years later, Carl Anderson found experimental evidence for Dirac's antiparticle when studying cosmic rays, and he named it a positron. In the 1950s, physicists made the antiproton.

When a particle encounters its antiparticle, they neutralize each other and turn mass into pure energy, as in the equation of Albert Einstein E = mc ² .

Antiparticles are not strange things found only in fiction. Positron is widely used in X-ray technology. And antiprotons have been created in accelerators in recent decades.

Giant magnets push protons through a tube cooled to -271 ^° C. (Artwork: Boston)

The question is why do they disappear in nature? The laws of physics do not " discriminate" between matter and antimatter. At the time of the birth of the universe in the Big Bang, the number of particles and antiparticles created must be equal. For each matter particle, there must be a antimatter particle. But in practice, we don't see them.

Some cosmologists think that at the time of birth, particles of matter are slightly more antiparticle, then they merge and neutralize each other. The other is the particle of matter that comes out in a sea of ​​energy.

Why is there such an asymmetry at the birth of the universe? Are there certain differences that are unknown between grain and antiparticle, making one of them survive over time? Theoretically not, but the theory needs to be verified by experiment.

One way to test is to conduct experiments on antimatter. If scientists can detect even a slight difference in the behavior of a hydrogen atom (an electron circling a proton) and a hydrogen antiparticle (a positron around an antiproton), then they can explain what happens when the universe begins, and why we only see ordinary matter today.

The fact that CERN " imprisoned " against hydrogen last week will make the experiment potentially successful. Scientists locked up 38 antiparticles for nearly half a second.

Hydrogen reactors have been created before but no one has been able to keep them long enough to use or research. The next step is to create a large amount of hydrogen reactor, which is locked up longer.

Once regularly supplied with anti-hydrogen, we will understand the basics, such as whether antiprotons and positrons attract each other with the same forces as electrons and protons? There is no reason to think it is not, but if experimentation results in another, physics needs a great revolution.