Scientists create matter and antimatter by light

A team of researchers from the Institute of Applied Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS) has announced that they have calculated how to create matter and antimatter through the use of lasers.

A team of researchers from the Institute of Applied Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences (IAP RAS) has announced that they have calculated how to create matter and antimatter through the use of lasers. This means that, by concentrating high-intensity lasers, we can soon produce matter and antimatter with light alone.

Light is made up of high-energy photons. When these photons pass through a strong electric field, they lose enough radiation to become gamma rays and create electron-position pairs, thereby creating a new state of matter.

Igor Kosstyukov, an IAP RAS researcher, gave an explanation of how to calculate the concept of quantum electrodynamics (QED) . "A strong electric field full of virtual particles such as electron-positron pairs can" heat the vacuum. " This activity can convert the types of particles from the virtual to the real state, in which particles cannot observe directly ".

Picture 1 of Scientists create matter and antimatter by light

Light is made up of high-energy photons.

A QED layer is a series of processes that begin with electrons and positrons accelerating in a laser field. It will then be followed by the dispersal of photons, electrons and high-energy positrions.

When high-energy photons disperse, it creates electron-positron pairs. Basically, a QED layer will lead to the production of electron-positrons. This is a theory that has never been observed in laboratory conditions.

Based on this, the researchers will observe how high-intensity laser beams interact with a metal foil through various simulation tests. From this observation, they obtained a surprising result, which is that the high energy photon produced by the positron is greater than the amount of electrons produced by the metal foil.

If we can produce a large number of positrion particles through a similar experiment, it can be concluded that most particles are created by a QED layer. This finding could open a new door to producing materials and antimatter with more efficient conditions.

Picture 2 of Scientists create matter and antimatter by light

Antimatter is an extremely expensive thing in both production and storage.

Antimatter is an extremely expensive thing in both production and storage. Generating 1 gram of antimatter will need about 25 million kilowatt-hours of energy and cost more than a million billion dollars. Therefore, this discovery hopes to provide a way to produce antimatter without costing too much energy and money. And when there is a new mode of production, we can change dramatically in supplying energy to spacecraft.

Research by researchers at the Institute of Applied Physics gives us greater insight into the nature of these types of interactions and thus paves the way for practical applications. For example, developing a laser-plasma source from high-energy photons and positrons will surpass all the available sources so far.

Update 18 December 2018
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